April 10: Myra Hess, Music Against the Blitz

The last of 1,698 lunchtime concerts organized by Myra Hess in London’s National Gallery during the Nazi blitz was played on this date in 1946. Because theaters, concert halls, and cinemas were all blacked out during the long months of air raids, Myra Hess, a well-known concert pianist, expressed concern about the mental health of her fellow Londoners to Kenneth Clark, director of the Gallery. They inaugurated the daytime concerts on October 10, 1939, and Hess herself played in 150 of them. She had made her début in 1907, at age 17, and created a lifelong partnership as a piano duo with Irene Scharrer, whom she met in school. The success of the National Gallery concerts brought her international fame, and Arturo Toscanini invited her to perform a Beethoven concerto with his orchestra during her first postwar tour of America. Hess (1890-1965) was named a Dame of the British Empire in 1941. To see and hear her play a Beethoven piece, click here.

“Her youthful determination to make her own way, her defiance of taboos like smoking in public, and her subsequent zest for Rabelaisian stories and vulgar jokes may be viewed as varied forms of rebellion against hypocrisy and the stultifying atmosphere characteristic of Victorian parlours.” —Marian C. McKenna, biographer