A TRIBUTE TO NINA MILKINA
(27 January 1919 – 29 November 2006)
by
Christopher Howell
1.
Introduction
2.
The Interview
3. A
Brief Biography
4.
Compositions
5.
Recordings
6.
Trivia
1.
Introduction
Nina Milkina by
Augustus John
Click
for larger version
In
2001 I was gathering materials on
Harold Craxton for the entry in the
new Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography. I visited England
that summer with a list of former
Craxton pupils to contact, all well-known
in the musical world but none more
so than Nina Milkina. I was not terribly
hopeful of an interview since I knew
she was elderly and had retired from
concert-giving through ill-health
ten years earlier. However, she and
her husband quickly set a date for
my visit. The awestruck response of
both my parents to my casual remark
that I was going to see Nina Milkina
is a measure of her prominence in
the UK as a recitalist
and broadcasting artist in the post-war
years and her high reputation with
older listeners. Sadly, few recordings
have preserved her art and her name
is probably barely known to younger
music lovers.
2.
The Interview
I
recall her house as set in a secluded,
dignified street with a Georgian air,
something of a calm oasis amid the
chaos of London. But perhaps
my memories are partly at fault, since
the recording I have of the interview
reveals traffic continually passing
outside, including a fanfare of police
sirens. I do not think I am mistaken
in recalling a large, aristocratic,
beautifully upholstered sitting-room.
With a grand piano at one end it could
easily have been set up as an intimate
recital room for a select group of
friends.
In
spite of my premonitions, Nina Milkina
actually appeared trim and alert.
Many foreigners, even those who came
to England while
still children, retain their foreign
accents and even seem to trade on
them. Nina Milkina spoke in a beautifully
clear upper-class English accent without
the slightest hint that it was not
the language of her earliest childhood.
She was more than willing to search
her memory for the information I was
seeking, but she was emphatically
not an old lady living amid her memories.
She was still active as an adjudicator
and took occasional pupils, as well
as maintaining a general interest
in musical life. In other words, she
was concerned with the present, not
the past, and her memories were more
general impressions than detailed
anecdotes. She modestly apologized
for this – “I
just wish I could be more concise
and not as diffused in my memories”
– and at one point remarked: “You’re
telling me a lot of things … much
more than I’m telling you, really”.
In
reality she was a good deal more helpful
than she apparently believed. I toyed
with the idea of asking for another
appointment, this time to ask her
about herself. However, as she did
not seem entirely at her ease being
interviewed – and she didn’t like
my Mini-Disc recorder! – I hesitated
to bother her again. I felt perhaps
I would do more to remind music lovers
of her name by reviewing the select
group of CDs which her husband was
having privately released.
Listening
again to my recording of the interview
I find that a number of the things
she said are also of interest for
what they reveal about herself and
I feel they are worth sharing. I am
conscious that the bald written word
may not convey the sense of deep appreciation
and admiration with which she spoke
of the several people mentioned, nor
the delighted laugh which punctuated
some of her memories. She came across
as a very natural, modest and human
person.
The
principal subject was obviously Harold
Craxton, who accepted her as a pupil
when she was eight, and to whom she
continued to go “till
he was no longer with us”.
I was more or less
adopted by Harold and Essie [Craxton’s
wife] …
for me he was THE teacher … wonderful
… so dedicated … a very, very special
person, a very dear person … I was
well into my forties and I still went
to him before a concert, and went
on playing to him and he never ceased
to be helpful.
However,
she did add the proviso that he could
be angered by “vulgar playing”
and that
… he could also
put you down if he thought you deserved
it.
Craxton
was equally delighted with his young
pupil. Nina Milkina showed me a letter
he wrote to her mother in 1930
in which he
declared “I cannot be too enthusiastic
… one of the most musically gifted
young artists I’ve ever heard … a
very rare talent”.
She
also wished to stress that Harold
Craxton was
… a very fine, sensitive
pianist himself … a superb accompanist
… he adored lieder … his playing of
old music was lovely.
She
also gave a tantalizing recollection
of she and Harold in less serious
moments:
Sometimes, at reunions
or parties, what he liked to do was,
we used to improvise on two pianos
… and we would play something à la
Debussy or Mozart,
or somebody would sing a little tune
and we would make variations … one
start and the other carry on like
one thing … and that was lovely, it
was most enjoyable … because he was
also a composer and so was I.
About
Craxton’s compositions she was rather
less sure:
He was very modest
about them. I think his family are
pressing them now and I’m not sure
that it’s wise. I think his arrangements
of the old composers are beautiful,
absolutely spot on, but his own compositions
I don’t think he ever felt were something
that he wanted to put in a showcase.
Later,
perhaps remembering that I had been
the prime mover behind the CD of Craxton’s
works which the family issued, she
added that she didn’t want me to think
… that I don’t put
a value on Harold’s own compositions.
I do, but not as much as I do on his
arrangements. But that’s a personal
feeling.
Returning
to Craxton as a teacher, I wondered
what sort of instruction he gave to
an eight-year-old girl.
I think at that
time he left me to my own resources.
But
even later, she was insistent that
he required of her no rigorous programme
of technical studies. This becomes
interesting when we compare the testimonies
of other Craxton pupils. Most of them
were given strict technical training
– the Chopin Studies with Cortot’s
exercises were frequently used, even
transposing them into different keys
while maintaining the same fingering.
One student was given exercises to
do on the train. The fact that none
of this was meted out to Nina Milkina
tells us a good deal about both parties.
Craxton was adept at seeing what each
individual needed rather than handing
out a standard, automatic method.
And Nina Milkina was such a complete
natural that he left well alone, acting
more as advisor than teacher.
Milkina
also played to Tobias Matthay, who
had earlier been Craxton’s own teacher.
Notoriously, Matthay wrote theoretical
works on piano technique which are
so abstruse that it needed one of
his pupils to write a pamphlet called
“What Matthay Meant” in order to make
any sense of them. Yet in practise
he also seems to have recognized that
Nina Milkina had it all from nature.
I also went to Uncle
Tobbs … he allowed me to do whatever
I wanted, I was never told to do all
this nonsense and everything … People
remember him with great affection,
he was a charming, very sweet old
man. I enjoyed going to him because
he sat back and allowed me to play
… very seldom did he tell me to do
this or that.
Matthay
also wrote a large quantity of rather
complicated music, mainly for piano.
What about that, I ventured to ask.
Her reply was diplomatic.
Well, I don’t know
… I think once a friend of mine, a
cellist, and I played a work of his
which pleased him very much, but I
can’t remember what it was like at
all.
At
one stage it came out that Alexander
Kelly, another Craxton pupil, was
among my former teachers.
He was a very fine
musician … I knew him quite well because
we used to adjudicate together, not
only for the Craxtons but I think
in Glasgow and other places where
we used to be asked on the jury, and
he was very sound and I must say we
always agreed, which was nice.
My
query as to how people today would
react to Craxton’s performances of
Elizabethan virginals music played
on the piano resulted in some of her
own thoughts about the historically
informed performance movement.
One can argue terrifically
… I enjoy it when they play on their
old instruments and I think it’s got
a lot to be said for it but I certainly
don’t think that one has to play on
a fortepiano, which I have also done,
because I was asked when at the Edinburgh
Festival they had this Mozart bicentenary
thing and they asked me to do half
the recital on a fortepiano of Mozart
and half on a modern piano, and I
didn’t find it difficult at all. And
truly, I think too much is made out
of this business … that you can only
play these composers on a harpsichord
or clavichord or fortepiano, and not
on a pianoforte.
Perhaps
the nearest to a stinging remark in
the whole interview was her reference
to
… some people …
people who bang and everything … and
it’s better if they play the clavichord
in another room.
This
in turn led to some revealing considerations
about sound:
… an odd thing about
sound … I’ve played a lot of chamber
music and they said that when you’re
playing trios and piano quartets and
things, don’t have the lid right up,
have it half open … We’ve tried it,
and I found I could play more delicately
and the sound was better with the
lid right up. Well that again, you
see, is contrary to what one would
think.
I’d
gladly have heard more, but she evidently
chided herself for straying off-topic:
But I’m not talking
about Harold, I’m talking about other
things … What a bore for you!
I
assured her it wasn’t at all, but
in any case I felt by now that she
had told me what I wanted to know
about Craxton and that I shouldn’t
trouble her further. Rather self-deprecatingly,
she asked:
Have you been taking
all this nonsense down?
Oh
yes, I assured her, I’d been taking
notes and it was all on the Mini-Disc.
Oh dear … well do
wipe it, I wish I’d said no …
And
the recorded part of the interview
ends with an amused laugh.
With
the official “business” over, her
husband entered and served drinks.
Freed from the threat of the Mini-Disc
recorder, Nina Milkina sat on the
arm of a sofa sipping a whisky and
turned the tables on me, asking a
few questions about myself and my
background. I’m sure she said much
else of interest, but I only remember
a few snippets. Glazunov, with whom
she had studied composition in Paris,
came up and I tried to draw her on
her own compositions. She gave another
diplomatic reply … “Well, they were
published …”. I have already mentioned
in my review of her Chopin Mazurkas
that her parents had taught her how
to dance the mazurka while she was
still in Russia, and that they had
differentiated between how a man dances
a mazurka and how a woman dances it.
I also have a note that she was encouraged
by Craxton to take up Debussy. It’s
a pity we can’t hear any of Milkina’s
Debussy, and evidently Craxton’s too,
since she considered his “Cathédrale
engloutie” the finest she had ever
heard.
I
sent her a copy of the Craxton article
when it was finished and received
a card in which she thanked me, adding
“Well
done! I am now much better informed
than I was before”.
While
it may be a pity that I did not seek
a further interview, specifically
about herself, the material I have
will hopefully help conserve the memory
of a charming person as well as a
very fine, natural musician.
3.
A brief biography
[i]
Nina
Milkina was born in Moscow
on 27 January 1919 – the same birthday
as Mozart. Her
father,
Jacques, was an artist and a friend
of Chagall, while her mother, Sophie,
was a harpist. A portrait by Jacques
of Nina as a child hung in her sitting-room,
with other paintings of his, to the
end of her life. It was reproduced
on one of her LPs and can be seen
below in the section dedicated to
her recordings.
As
life got harder in post-Revolutionary
Russia, it
was clearly time to move. First out
was Sophie, who in 1926 took Nina
and her younger brother to London,
where her grandfather and an aunt
were already living. Here she was
accepted as a pupil by Harold Craxton
at the age of eight. However, permanent
study with Craxton had to wait a while,
for when her father left Russia he
went to join the large Russian émigré
community in Paris – “Even
the taxi drivers were Russian princes
then”
[ii]
, Nina recalled.
The
exact date of his move seems to be
lost in the mists of time. However,
Nina was in Paris
by 1929, when the ten-year-old girl
had the opportunity to play to Rachmaninov,
even daring to offer his own G major
Prelude. “Imagine
the courage of a child! Afterwards
he played some phrases of the Prelude
to me and it was amazing to see those
enormous hands producing such a telling
pianissimo.
I still have his very kind letter
assessing my talent”
[iii]
. The meeting with
Rachmaninov came about through the
latter’s friendship with Leon Conus
[iv]
, Nina’s piano teacher
in Paris and formerly
a professor of the Moscow Conservatoire.
“To
Conus, finger technique was all-important
– treating fingers individually to
give the right flavour of sound to
the music. ‘Taste the keys! Taste
the keys!’, he used to say”.
[v]
For
composition lessons, she went first
to Leonid Sabaniev and then – beginning
in 1932, we see from her diary – to
the elderly Alexander Glazunov. “He [Glazunov] called
himself my grandfather and set out
studies and contrapuntal puzzles which
I had to resolve. After this serious
business we played games – such as
my transposing Bach fugues”
[vi]
. She made her
public debut with the Lamoureux Orchestra
at the age of eleven, and in this
same year had her first composition
published – a suite for piano called
“My Toys” – by Boosey and Hawkes.
The 1932 diary referred to is unfortunately
the only one to survive from those
years. It shows that by then she was
shuttling back and forth between the
two cities, with public appearances
in both of them. On 25 May she was
back in Paris
and “pleased to see Daddy”
[vii]
, but possibly
she already felt England was
her home since her return on 1 June
elicited the comment “pleased
to be back”. On 9 July she noted:
“Played at the Craxtons.
I love Mr. Craxton very much and wish
I could study with him”. Two days
earlier she had met the remarkable
Helen Keller, the American activist
who had been the first deaf-blind
person to achieve graduation. “Shall
never forget it. Was so moved that
I kissed her. Wish I had the spirit
of that woman”.
In
Paris
once again on 12 October, she had
a “Lesson
with Marie Charpentier (God save me)”.
Whoever Madame Charpentier was, Divine
Providence did not spare her another
dose ten days later. A more prominent
teacher from whom she took a few lessons
in 1932 was Marguerite Long, but this
relationship was also less than successful.
However, she did note on 21 October
that “She
was very, very pleased with me in
front of the pupils and was so kind
that I forgot to dislike her”.
The entry for 14 December simply records
Glazunov’s address, so this was presumably
her first encounter with him.
Not
long after this she was permanently
settled in London and achieved
her desire to study with Craxton,
as well as with Craxton’s own former
teacher Tobias Matthay. She knew the
latter by at least 1932, when she
dedicated the first of her “Two Fairy
Tales” to him. Some press cuttings
conserved by Craxton describe her
appearance in a concert by his students
at the Aeolian Hall with the London
Senior Orchestra under Ernest Read.
Miss Nina Milkin
[the form of her name used at
this time],
the soloist in the first movement
of Beethoven’s Third Concerto, showed
real ability in her command of steady
rhythm and neat phrasing, while her
agreeable tone was always carefully
suited to the needs of the music –
The Morning Post, 10 April 1935.
Nina Milkin … gave
an exceptionally scholarly and dignified
rendering of Beethoven’s C minor concerto.
This girl of 16 obviously has a brilliant
career before her – The Daily
Telegraph, 10 April 1935.
The personality
of Nina Milkin, a young Russian pianist,
the particular qualities of her expression,
and an already polished, if as yet
deliberate, way of playing, leave
no doubt that something contributive
and original may be expected of her
– The Observer, 14 April 1935.
Her
career was thereafter in continual
crescendo until the outbreak of the
Second World War. This prevented a
planned tour of the United
States, but she
toured the UK,
playing in Dame Myra Hess’s National
Gallery lunchtime concerts as well
as at the Proms. She played at the
last wartime Prom – under Sir Henry
Wood – held at the Royal Albert Hall
before the concerts were transferred
to a safer venue. Her wartime broadcasts
were often made at Aldenham during
the night for the BBC World Service
and she frequently performed for the
troops, visiting Scapa Flow twice. After one such
concert in Bournemouth she went to
stay with friends in Dorset.
They had invited a young military
friend of theirs, Captain Alastair
Sedgwick, to the concert but he had
preferred to go to the pub. Nevertheless
they met over breakfast and were married
in 1943. This wartime idyll was sadly
darkened by the horror of Nina’s Jewish
parents’ deaths in the gas chambers.
Throughout
the immediate post-war years Nina
Milkina strengthened her reputation
with frequent broadcasts and recital
appearances. She recorded a complete
cycle of the Mozart sonatas in 1946
for the fledgling BBC Third Programme
and later set down the complete Haydn
Piano Trios with the Oromonte trio.
With Harry Blech and his London Mozart
Players, formed in 1949, and previously
with Alec Sherman and the New London
Orchestra, she explored the lesser-known
Mozart concertos. She later recalled
Blech’s “patience
and hard work” in setting up this
orchestra, but also some lighter moments:
Among many happy
memories of those early days, I recall
a concert at the
Chelsea Town
Hall.
In the artists room before the concert,
Harry had, inadvertently, sat on one
of my cadenzas on which I had placed
some chewing gum. When Harry got up
to enter the platform he did so with
my cadenza sticking to his coat tails.
Luckily, amid our laughter, it was
removed by an eagle-eyed attendant,
before he took his bow
[viii]
.
Possibly
the eagle eyes were unnecessary. Older
readers will recall that Harry Blech’s
rear view was a very substantial one
indeed.
As
mentioned in the interview, Nina Milkina
contributed a recital to the Edinburgh
Festival in Mozart’s bicentenary year
in which she played half on a forte
piano – almost unheard of in those
days – and half on a normal piano.
Her repertoire was wider than might
be supposed – at the same Edinburgh
Festival she collaborated with the
actor Sebastian Shaw in a performance
of Richard Strauss’s melodrama setting
of Tennyson’s “Enoch Arden”. She was
not a great advocate of contemporary
music but had a long friendship with
the “remarkable all-round
musician” Robert Simpson, whose
chamber music and symphonies she felt
“both profound and
beautifully crafted”
[ix]
. Chamber music
also had an important place – she
collaborated with, among others, Dennis
Brain, Leon Goossens, Evelyn Rothwell
and Thea King, as well as being a
member of the Oromonte Piano Trio.
A photograph from the 1966 Edinburgh
Festival shows that the other members
of this trio were originally Perry
Hart (violin) and Bruno Schreker (cello),
but by 1967 the cellist was Kenneth
Heath. For a time she lived in a flat
above that of Sir Clifford Curzon
– “Upstairs, me; downstairs,
Clifford. It should have been the
other way round”
[x]
. She played
the Mozart Two-Piano Concerto K.365
with Curzon on 7 May 1942
[xi]
and again at the
Mozart Birthday Concert in the Royal
Festival Hall on 27 January 1979.
The Mozart Birthday Concerts have
long been annual events, organized
until 2004 by Alastair Sedgwick, when
he handed over to Rosemary Pickering
of the Young Concert Artists’ Trust.
The 1979 concert also included the
Two-Piano Sonata K.448. Her husband
recalls that it was fascinating to
watch them rehearsing back in 1943,
Nina so instinctive while Curzon was
meticulously insistent on working
out every tiniest detail. And yet
they had no difficulty in finding
common ground at the end of it.
 |
| Nina Milkina
with Sir Clifford Curzon and Sir
John Eliot Gardiner at the reception
following the Mozart Birthday
Concert at the RFH on 27 January
1979 |
The
1979 concert was conducted by John
Eliot Gardiner. Harold Rosenthal remarked
of the Sonata that “They
seemed to be creating the music together
as if the notes were scarcely dry
on the page. It was sheer magic”.
Of the Concerto, he found that “their
evident enjoyment communicated itself
not only to the audience, but also
to the orchestra”
[xii]
. Peter Stadlen,
too, found the Sonata performance
“unforgettable”
and noted “The pianists’ telepathic
ensemble of heart and mind” in
the Concerto
[xiii]
. The BBC had wished
to broadcast the event but the ever-anxious
Curzon did not allow this, saying
it was so many years since he had
last played with Milkina and he was
not sure how it would go. In the event
he was delighted and declared he would
make amends, but his death in 1982
intervened before this was possible
[xiv]
. Nina Milkina played
Mozart’s tragic B minor Adagio at
Curzon’s funeral.
With
the birth of her children in 1958
and 1960 her appearances became a
little rarer and she was perhaps less
in the public eye, though her recitals
were eagerly sought after by musicians
and connoisseurs. At the end of the
1980s she was fighting cancer. She
won the battle but found that her
back would no longer stand the strain
of the long hours at the piano necessary
to maintain the standard she demanded
of herself. She announced her retirement
in 1991. It is perhaps symptomatic
of why she was so much loved yet less
universally known than she deserved,
that her final concert was not in
one of the world’s great capitals
but at the Joyce Grenfell Centre of
Claremont Fan School, Esher,
on 10 March 1991. “An Evening with
Nina Milkina” was organized by the
Esher & District Christian Aid
Committee and raised over £1,000 for
Christian Aid. She offered a typical
programme of Scarlatti, Mozart and
Chopin Mazurkas, but her final offering
to the public, as an encore, was Rachmaninov’s
transcription of Rimsky-Korsakov’s
“Flight of the Bumble Bee”.
She
remained active as an adjudicator.
She never taught on a regular basis
or at an academic institution, but
several pianists sought her advice.
Craig
Sheppard’s account of his session
with her on Bach may be read on this
site and another was Murray Perahia.
A late protégé was Leon McCawley.
She died on November 29th
2006 at the age of 87.
Nina
Milkina was a natural artist and a
natural performer. Her lack of sheer
ego put her at a disadvantage compared
with certain of her pushier contemporaries.
Her career remained UK-based and her
post-war appearances abroad were few.
In the 1950s she appeared in Holland
(the Hague
and Amsterdam)
and Switzerland
(Geneva).
In 1958 she accompanied Harry Blech
and the London Mozart Players on a
tour of Italy. A
1969 solo tour took her to Beirut,
Kuwait, Calcutta, Poona and Delhi,
while another in 1973 covered Cyprus,
Nicosia, Ankara and Istanbul. Her
long-delayed American debut took place
on 6 June 1972, when she played Mozart
K.467 with Arthur Fiedler and the
Boston Pops Orchestra. She returned
the following year for recitals at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and the De Cordova Museum; these appearances
represent the total of her American
career. If the tour planned in 1939
had come off her post-war profile
might have been very different. Yet
this may have worried her less than
it did her admirers. When her husband
wrote to me, shortly after her death,
“I think you know what a wonderfully
modest person she was, which in some
ways restricted the development of
her career, but among the knowledgeable
few she was revered”, this was not
the hyperbole of a grieving widower
but the literal truth.
4.
Compositions
Nina
Milkina’s pre-war recitals often included
a composition or two of her own, several
of which were published. “If
I remember correctly I was paid five
guineas for each masterpiece and was
then given a few sixpences to spend
as I liked in Woolworth’s”
[xv]
. A 1936 review
referred to some “agreeable and daintily
written sketches of her own composition”
[xvi]
. Apart from "My
Toys", mentioned above, "Two
Fairy Tales" and "Fête
du Village" were also published
in 1932. "Valse Caprice"
and "Marche Burlesque" followed
in 1934; the latter acquired some
popularity. A slightly later "Sonatine"
was premièred towards the end
of the 1930s.
I
have been able to examine two of these
publications. The “Two Fairy Tales”
were dedicated respectively to Tobias
Matthay and Leon Conus. Though they
are written in a post-romantic style
which would not have caused to much
offence to the elderly Glazunov, there
is nothing at all childish or simplistic
about the music. What may come as
a surprise is the extreme sophistication
of their atmospheres, delicately-hued,
slightly melancholy fin de siècle soundscapes.
The first is the more varied and ultimately
the more rewarding. The second has
a haunting principal idea but depends
on it too much. The secondary material
is brief and less striking so at the
end the piece never seems to have
got away from its beginning.
The
“Marche-Burlesque” was written in
1933 and published in 1934. It was
dedicated to Henri Busser. Here the
musical language is much more up-to-date.
It is a sizzling little piece that
compares favourably with Prokofief’s
early opus numbers of piano miniatures.
In
an age which delights in exploring
musical byways, at least on disc,
such pieces as these could well be
slotted into a programme of Russian
miniatures. However, it would be regrettable
if anyone, unaware of Milkina’s achievements
as a pianist, should suppose her compositions
to be central to her life’s work.
Nina
Milkina ceased to compose after the
outbreak of the Second World War,
but later she provided cadenzas for
a number of Mozart concertos. Some
were originally intended for Myra
Hess and Clifford Curzon and are played
today by Leon McCawley.
5.
Recordings
The
few recordings available on CD have
been reviewed by me for MusicWeb.
They are available through Nina Milkina’s
son Alex Sedgwick at alex@sedgwickphoto.com
and are:
Chopin:
51 Mazurkas
Chopin:
24 Preludes, Nocturne in C sharp minor
Nina
Milkina at the Wigmore Hall
Craig
Sheppard also discusses
these recordings in the article
mentioned above.
All
the above recordings come from a select
group made for Pye from the late 1960s
to the mid 1970s. These now belong
to EMI and have been licensed for
issue on the Unterschrift label. Below
is a full list of the Pye issues.
Those in red are included in the CD
releases. Some contemporary reviews
are quoted, including, for objectivity’s
sake, a few dissenting comments.
BRAHMS: Piano
Trio in C major, op. 87
HAYDN: Piano
Trio no. 4
in E major
Oromonte Piano Trio – Nina Milkina
(piano), Perry Hart (violin), Kenneth
Heath (cello)
Pye TPLS 13018
(LP)
We find this performance
of the Brahms slightly lacking in
weight and authority, but we are captivated
by the delightful performance of Haydn’s
gentle E major trio and especially
by the piano playing of Nina Milkina
– EMG Monthly Letter 4/1969. 
HAYDN: Sonata
in E minor, Pieces for
Mechanical Clocks
MOZART: Sonata
in A minor K.310, Variations on an
Allegretto K.54
Pye TPLS 13021
(LP)
The
cover of TPLS 13021 reproduces a portrait
of the young Nina Milkina by her father
Highly sensitive
playing …. In the Mozart A minor Miss
Milkina shows a striking blend of
strength and sensitivity – this is
a difficult sonata to get right, and
she succeeds admirably. The Haydn
Sonata, too, is beautifully played
and the two fill-ups are very charming.
– EMG Monthly Letter 5/1969.
Miss Milkina conveys
much, if not quite all, of the first
movement’s [of the Mozart sonata]
tension. She ‘scores’ the slow movement
with imaginative contrasts of tone
and colour, and takes the finale as
a really swift presto. All the same,
I think Haydn’s E minor Sonata suits
her light and nimble fingers still
better… She plays it with great delicacy,
clarity and control. I also enjoyed
her glistening neatness in the slighter
pieces on the record … – Joan
Chissell, Gramophone 7/1969.
CHOPIN:
51
Mazurkas
Pye TPLS 13038
(3 LPs)
Nina Milkina is
such a musical and accomplished pianist
that it is strange she has had so
little opportunity to make records.
These performances of the complete
mazurkas are a real pleasure to listen
to; they are highly idiomatic in style
(the playing is subtly rubato throughout)
yet beautifully poised with a firm
line and a clear rhythm. – EMG
Monthly Letter 1/1971.
It must be said
at once that Nina Milkina’s attractively-boxed
set … is a serious proposition. Hers,
naturally, is a less detached approach
than Rubinstein’s; … after a lifetime
of Chopin playing he views even this
music as it were from above, so the
significance of each phrase is distilled
to its essence. Miss Milkina’s perspective
is shorter, the effect being of greater
immediacy; that is, although her readings
are polished it is almost as if she
were still discovering the music,
not recollecting it in tranquillity.
And she is independent.
She takes op. 6 No. 4 and Op. 7 No.
2 quite slowly, and they work that
way; nor is the over-familiar Op.
7 No. 1 dashed through in the usual
manner …. One expected the widest
fallings-short from Rubinstein’s unique
standard to come in the greatest Mazurkas,
such as the glorious Op. 24 No. 4,
but it does not work out like that.
Indeed, the more ambitious pieces
bring out something like the best
in Miss Milkina … [She gives] much
satisfaction through Op. 41 and 59,
first and last of the consistently
great sets – Max Harrison, Gramophone
1/1971.
NINA MILKINA AT
THE WIGMORE HALL
BACH:
French
Overture
SCARLATTI: 6
Sonatas
HAYDN: Sonata in B minor
MOZART:
Minuet
in D K.355, Sonata in D K.575
CHOPIN:
3
Ecossaises, Nocturne in C sharp minor
SCRIABIN:
3
Etudes
RACHMANINOV:
Prelude
op.32/5
PROKOFIEF:
Suggestion
diabolique op.4/4
Pye TPLS 13050-1
(2 LPs)
[Note
that the later CD compilation with
the same title is not a direct transfer
of the LP set].
… the first movement
of the Bach … is lithe, resilient,
most enjoyable in its fire and clarity.
… the Sarabande is particularly beautiful.
The[Scarlatti] performances,
again, have elegance and vivacity,
not an easy combination to bring off.
Haydn’s sonata, too, is so well-judged
as to sound completely natural – there
are no exaggerations and yet this
is very expressive playing. Predictably,
the Mozart works fare best of all,
for Miss Milkina’s interpretations
of this composer have long been celebrated,
and rightly so. …
… The Nocturne is
very satisfying, played with much
feeling and a lovely tone… The first
of the Scriabin Etudes, no. 10, is
not really fast enough and the Prokofief,
also, while it receives a worthy performance,
needs more virtuosity as it should
appear wilder and more abandoned.
Miss Milkina is most successful in
the well-known B flat minor Scriabin,
however, its beautiful, many-noted
textures being kept supple and clear,
as are those of the Rachmaninov piece.
– Max Harrison, Gramophone 5/1973.
SCARLATTI:
12
Sonatas
Pye TPLS 13057
(LP)
… a particularly
astute selection, poetic and vivacious
by turn … Her touch is very even yet
not in the least machine-like, dynamics
… are employed with intelligence …
the phrasing is fluid yet precise
… There is, in fact, much to delight
here – Max Harrison, Gramophone
12/1973.
Miss Milkina is
a sensitive player, but her romantic
approach tends to rob the music of
its sparkle and clarity. … However,
anyone who dislikes the harpsichord
but wants Scarlatti on record will
find here a well chosen programme
played with conviction. – EMG
Monthly Letter 11/1973.
MOZART: Concertos
K.271/467
with Orchestra of St.
John’s Smith Square/John Lubbock
Pye PCNH1 (LP)
Miss Milkina’s performances
are … very perceptive and intelligent
… and both performances have lively
and keen orchestral playing. –
EMG Monthly Letter 6/1976.
To
these tapings may be added the Chopin
Preludes which were not approved for
release at the time, as explained
in my review of the CD issue. As can
be seen, the Pye material as yet unreleased
on CD would barely fill a further
three discs. Also on Pye, a 10” LP from 1958
has her collaborating with Sebastian
Shaw, Donald Swann and Marjorie Westbury
in “London Sketches”. During the 1960s
she set down the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas
with Thea King for Summit,
a disc sponsored by the clarinettist
herself, while Westminster issued
her in four sonatas by C.P.E. Bach
and twelve by Scarlatti (XWN 18853
and 18697 respectively). A 1973 documentary
film “The Great Composers: W.A. Mozart”
(IFB Video) concludes with Nina Milkina
playing part of K.271 accompanied
by Harry Blech and the London Mozart
Players.
A late venture
by ASV resulted in a single CD of
Mozart:
MOZART: Sonatas
K.330/K.576, Rondo in A minor K.511,
Adagio in B minor K.540
rec.
Conway Hall, London,
August 1987
ASV CD DCA 648
(CD: 55:44)
It
is a pity that such a small recorded
repertoire should contain a major
duplication – K.576. However, it is
instructive to compare the two. The
later recording is much more reverberant
and the two-part contrapuntal exchanges
in the first movement have a miraculous
clarity in the earlier version which
is not matched here. In the Wigmore
Hall Milkina almost seems to be playing
a fortepiano while in the Conway Hall
we definitely hear a concert grand
in an empty concert room. The performance
is nevertheless beautifully poised.
If
the Pye recording seems preferable
in the first movement, in the second
Nina Milkina eases herself into the
Conway Hall acoustic to give a more
expansive, romantically lit interpretation
which finds a new depth in the movement.
It is about half a minute longer.
In the finale, however, she is quicker
than before and has an irresistible
lilt. The D minor section arrives
as though she has discovered it in
that moment and she proves over the
following page to be one of the few
who could play Mozart with real passion
without going beyond the confines
of the style. This is a reminder that,
while Milkina’s listeners were always
guaranteed refined execution and natural,
sympathetic musicianship, she could
sometimes reward them with true inspiration.
With
no comparisons to make, I was not
unduly worried about the reverberation
elsewhere on the record, indeed I
enjoyed the full, rich sound. I have
of late been listening a lot to Ingrid
Haebler’s late Mozart cycle. I continue
to enjoy her Olympian sublimity. Those
who find it a little chilly, or those
who, like me, would not always want
to hear the music played the same
way, will find that Milkina offers
a much more immediate vivacity in
K.330. Each phrase leaps to life in
an almost operatic way. I just wish
the comparison between the two were
not restricted to so few works.
The
A minor Rondo and the B minor Adagio
are two Mozart pieces I dread. I know
they are supposed to be among his
deepest but all too often they seem
to last for ever.
Not
when Nina Milkina plays them. It is
difficult to define the secret for
it is not as if she really does
anything with the music. The tolling-bell
bass notes at the beginning of the
Rondo and the occasional slight suggestion
of separated hands is the nearest
she comes to idiosyncrasy. In the
contrasting material her dynamic range
is actually rather bold and she always
leads the ear onwards. The fact that
she was not a “big” pianist – in the
sense that one cannot imagine her
storming through Rachmaninov 3 with
all guns blazing – perhaps enabled
her to give her all in Mozart where
other pianists felt obliged to hold
back. The Adagio similarly makes its
point with deep feeling yet no special
pleading. The final resolution to
the major key is extraordinarily moving.
The whole colour of the music changes
to evoke, not a happy ending, but
a vision of Schubertian unattainable
beauty.
This
is one of the finest Mozart records
I know and, in the absence of a reissue,
anyone who sees it around should snap
it up.
Nina
Milkina was also a frequent broadcaster.
Alas, the BBC do not systematically
conserve their tapes and just two
are listed in the catalogue of the
British National Sound Archive. From
3 October 1983 there is a St.
John’s Smith Square
concert in which six Scarlatti sonatas
are followed by Beethoven’s Quintet
op.16 with a vintage team consisting
of Neil Black, Thea King, Anthony
Halstead and Graham Sheen. And from
7 August 1987 is a performance of
the Mozart K.387 Concerto with string
quartet accompaniment, played by the
Delmé Quartet. To these may be added
a 1961 performance of Mozart K.595
with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under
Sir Alexander Gibson, which entered
the archive as part of the Gibson
Collection. The sound is said to be
poor.
A
letter from Andrew Lyle of the BBC
to Alastair Sedgwick
[xvii]
shows that the
BBC themselves hold a little more,
or did in 2000. Most notable are eight
of the twelve programmes dedicated
to the Haydn Piano Trios (1967-8),
a total of sixteen Trios played by
the Oromonte Piano Trio. Also listed
are four out of six programmes dedicated
to the Chopin Mazurkas (1975) and
a little more Mozart and Scarlatti.
It
is possible that Milkina’s many admirers
hold tapings of her broadcasts and
it would be interesting to have information
about any surviving recordings. Various
off-the-air reel-to-reel tapes are
held by the family but it has not
been possible for the moment to catalogue
or assess them. Her official recorded
legacy is just about enough to provide
future listeners with a measure of
her artistry, but it decidedly whets
the appetite for more.
6.
Trivia
Nina Milkina was once "paid
to play badly". In Alexander
Korda's 1948 film of Anna Karenina,
starring Vivien Leigh, she was cast
as a "ham-fisted pianist":
"I had to try a Chopin mazurka,
then one of his nocturnes, then give
it up as a bad job" [xviii]
