Iris Loveridge
The
British pianist Iris (G M) Loveridge,
was a Londoner, born on 10 April 1917.
She was educated at the Lady Eleanor
Holles School in Hampton. In 1934
she attended the Royal College of
Music and the following year won the
Ada Lewis scholarship to the Royal
Academy, securing free tuition with
her existing teacher, Welton Hickin.
Between 1937 and 1939 the Elsie Horne
and Leonard Borwick Prizes came her
way while she was refining her art
with Cyril Smith and Louis Kentner.
In 1939 she entered the lists at the
RCM garnering the Marlten-Mayer award
from a fund instituted by Sir Robert
Mayer to help distinguished young
artists.
Her very first public
appearance was made when was only
eight but her professional concert
debut took place in London at the
Aeolian Hall on 12 November 1938 when
she played Beethoven and Brahms. This
had been preceded by earlier BBC broadcast
studio recitals. By then she had established
a connection and respect within the
BBC which continued into Robert Simpson's
era in the music department of the
Third Programme.
She was a popular
artist, much in demand, who played
in orchestral concerts all over the
UK for Henry Wood – an early encourager
- and Barbirolli. Years later she
formed a durable duet team as the
‘Barbirolli Duo’ with Lady Barbirolli,
the oboist Evelyn Rothwell (1911-2000).
Works from the 1970s include Jacob’s
Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1972),
a Connoisseur Concerts commission
for Evelyn Barbirolli and Iris Loveridge.
She also worked with the Alberni Quartet.
She was a member of the Martin-Hooton-Loveridge
trio with her contemporaries the cellist
Florence Hooton (well known for championing
Frank Bridge’s Oration and
the Bax Cello Concerto) and Hooton’s
husband, the violinist David Martin.
In the early 1960s they recorded Beethoven’s
Piano Trio no. 7 in B flat Major on
World Record Club T-36. The trio continued
active for over a quarter of a century,
finally disbanding in 1976. Hooton
and Loveridge shared a 1965 mono LP
with Loveridge playing the Gordon
Jacob piano sonata of which she was
the dedicatee and Hooton Jacob’s Divertimenti
For Solo Cello.
She remained a regular
broadcaster and performer well into
her senior years. The pianist Donald
Ellman recalls taking the role of
second piano to her when she was preparing
for a concerto appearance, something
she continued to do well into her
seventies. She played lots of Mozart
as well as Tchaikovsky No. 1, Rachmaninov
No. 3, the Grieg, Bloch's Concerto
Grosso No 1, Falla's Nights in
the Gardens of Spain and
the Delius Concerto. Her repertoire
had always been wide-ranging and adventurous
with over fifty concertos, many of
them contemporary or 20th century
British, some of which she premiered
and continued to champion.
After the war, and
in the dazzle of New Elizabethan arts
enlightenment, she made solo, duet
and concert appearances for music
clubs, societies and amateur orchestras
at town and village halls all over
the United Kingdom. She appeared as
soloist with the Lerwick Orchestra
in the Shetlands in 1955 and her energetic
touring continued until the late 1980s.
She was President of the Aylesbury
Symphony Orchestra, a large amateur
orchestra, from 1984 until 1998.
Her name appears
in the annals of the wartime National
Gallery concerts and at the Wigmore
Hall, the Cambridge Theatre, Queen’s
Hall and Royal Albert Hall Proms.
She also gave concerts for the Allied
armed forces in Germany in 1944 and
1945. This international connection
continued after the war with concert
tours on the Continent and in Australasia.
Her style was said
to be "brilliantly clear, yet
possessed intriguing depths of expression."
Quoting from her obituary: "After
a recital she gave at the Wigmore
Hall in June 1941, The Times wrote:
‘Miss Loveridge combined fluency with
sensitiveness in her piano solos,
and especially in Glazounow's Theme
and Variations was her poetic
approach appreciated.’" Paul
Davis recalls hearing Iris "several
times in live performance … I would
describe her platform manner as very
straightforward - no "airs and graces".
This apparent business-like appearance
belied the quality of her performance;
she possessed ample technique which
she employed to go the heart of the
music." Another source says that
while she had virtuosity to spare,
her playing was very much focused
on seeking out the inner meaning of
the music. She was an involving soloist
and was given to addressing her audiences
with a few friendly words to introduce
each piece she played.
Her musical interests
ranged far and wide from Bach to Rubbra
but her fach became British
music of the period 1920-1960. She
was also drawn to the music of Albeniz,
Turina and de Falla. In the 1950s
she made a special study of the works
of these composers. Her other favourites
included Prokofiev, Kabalevsky, Khachaturyan,
Dohnanyi and Medtner. As late as February
1981 there was a broadcast by her
of Medtner’s Sonata-Triad and
Sonata Romantica. In the 1970s
there was also a BBC studio series
devoted to Martinů’s
piano music. She played the complete
Etudes and Polkas (three
books), complete Puppet Pieces
(three books), Eight Preludes,
Three Czech Dances, Fables,
"The Fifth Day of The Fifth Moon",
and the Fantasy and Toccata.
Her great friend, the composer and
BBC producer Robert Simpson involved
her regularly in-studio in unusual
and conducive repertoire.
She was much associated
with the music of E.J. Moeran. In
the 1960s she recorded an anthology
of his solo piano pieces on Lyrita
LP RCS 3. Years before that she had
made a splash with a series of performances
of Moeran’s Rhapsody No. 3 for
piano and orchestra. There were several
performances in Manchester and a tape
of a broadcast of this work exists
but is sadly inaccessible. Moeran
considered her performance outstanding
and wrote to Walter Legge on 15 September
1944: "I went to Manchester last
week and heard the piano and orchestra
rhapsody properly for the first time.
Iris Loveridge is an excellent intelligent
pianist with a first rate technique.
She gave the work an exuberance, vitality
and brilliance which were painfully
lacking before and I have now come
to the conclusion that this F sharp
rhapsody is a really good effort on
my part."
She recorded extensively,
particularly contributing to the rise
in popularity of Sir Arnold Bax in
the 1960s, the decade after his death.
There were three Lyrita Recorded Edition
LPs: Piano Sonata no. 1, A Hill-tune,
Mediterranean, Ceremonial
Dance, Water Music, Serpent
Dance, Country Tune (RCS
10); Piano Sonata no. 2, Paean,
Dream in Exile, What the
Minstrel Told Us (RCS 11); Piano
Sonata no. 3, Lullaby, O
Dame get up and bake your Pies,
Winter Waters, In a Vodka
Shop, The Maiden with the Daffodil
(RCS 12). The tapes were set down
for a fourth LP (RCS30) but it was
never issued.
Both Edmund Rubbra
and Gordon Jacob wrote works for her
as did John Wright whose Kaleidoscope
Variations she presented in 1960.
Her broadcasts in the 1950s included
the piano concertos by Harry Isaacs,
Rawsthorne (No. 1), Jacob (No. 1)
and Doreen Carwithen. She played and
broadcast the Jacob piano trio with
Hooton and Martin. She gave the first
London performance of Antony Hopkins’
Piano Sonata No. 3. She also gave
what seems to have been the first
UK performance of William Schuman’s
Piano Concerto with BBCSO conducted
by Basil Cameron. This took place
in September 1947.
There were also commercial
recordings for Columbia. The most
famous was Palmgren’s Evening Whispers
(No. 1 of op. 47) which has recently
been reissued. This was recorded on
27 November 1946 with Palmgren’s op.
28 No. 5 (DX2304). In addition she
made Columbia 78s of Mendelssohn’s
Songs without words opp. 19/1,3;
62/6; 67/4 (DX1880), Chopin opp. 40
and 66 (DX1239) and Granados’s Goyescas
book 1/1 (DX1456). She also recorded
for Argo and their early mono LP (RG89)
features Bartók’s Sonata for
Two Pianos and Percussion with Loveridge
performing alongside Wilfrid Parry
(piano) and the percussionists Gilbert
Webster and Jack Lees, all conducted
by Richard Austin.
Ates Orga recalls
being on an examining panel of the
ABRSM sometime in the 1980s where
one of the students in Brighton, a
young girl in her early teens doing
Grade 8 was comfortably the most remarkable
Grade 8 he had ever heard or examined,
a phenomenal virtuoso immaculately
prepared and taught. "I gave
her the maximum allowed marks, a high-octane
Distinction in every sense."
Iris was a devoted
daughter and was known to return home
to Kenton, Middlesex late at night
after far-flung provincial concerts
to ensure that she was there for her
parents in the morning. She married
city accountant Harry Morriss in 1966
having met him at a concert she gave
for the Music Society of the City
Livery Company – of which he was Secretary.
Harry died in 1995 which also marked
the end of her concert-career. In
their later years the couple had lived
in Beaconsfield. She was a keen gardener,
an excellent cook and a most generous
hostess. The gardening was an interest
she acquired from Harry who was a
keen cultivator of roses.
She died on 6 November
2000, aged 83, with her contribution
barely remembered. Her funeral was
in Gloucestershire attended by a small
band of loyal friends. Iris was survived
by a stepson.
Rob Barnett
This could not have
been written without the generous
contribution of memories and factual
material by:-
Terry Barfoot
Peter Craddock
Sandra Craddock
Donald Ellman
Lewis Foreman
Rolf Jordan
Paul Lewis
Christopher J Miles
Ates Orga
Glyn Pursglove
Philip Sear
John Talbot
Raphael Terroni
Jonathan Woolf
I am grateful to all
of them and to Dr Len Mullenger. This
could not have been written without
their open-handed support. RB
====================
Iris Loveridge
A Reminiscence by
Peter Craddock, conductor of the Havant
Orchestra:-
Iris
Loveridge was a great favourite with
Havant Orchestras and audiences and
a delightful soloist to work with.
She had a meticulous attention to
detail and always wished to involve
the orchestra 'as if playing chamber
music'. She had an enormous
repertoire of over 50 concertos, many
of them contemporary or 20th century
British works, some of which she premiered
and continued to champion afterwards.
She appeared with the
Havant Orchestras on nine occasions
between 1970 and 1987 always with
inspiring performances - whatever
the quality of the piano! If
ever we had any out-of-the-way repertoire
scheduled Iris would be our first
consideration as soloist - if she
didn't already have it in her repertoire
(unlikely) she would learn it up specially.
Thus she appeared as soloist in interesting
works like Bloch's Concerto Grosso
No 1, Falla's Nights in the Garden
of Spain and the Delius Concerto.
I remember particularly the circumstances
involving the latter work. We
had hired the orchestral material
from Boosey and Hawkes in an edition
(currently favoured) by Sir Thomas
Beecham. When Iris arrived for
rehearsal on the afternoon of the
concert we were horrified to discover
that she had been working on the original
Universal edition, i.e. before Sir
Thomas refashioned it with several
structural and tempo changes.
Totally unfazed, she immediately suggested
ways in which we could overcome the
disparities and the performance went
ahead with typical aplomb.
In the twilight of
her career she devoted all her performances
to charity, donating her fees to whatever
cause the concerts were in aid of.
She gave several recitals for us in
Havant, without fee, to raise money
for the purchase of a Havant Piano.
Iris was always worried
about having small hands, but her
classical technique and training always
triumphed and made her playing look
and sound effortless
Whenever she came to
play a concerto she would always stay
a few days with us and became part
of the family - engaging the children
in play and the adults with stories
of her experiences - always kind reminiscences
when involving other musicians.
She will be remembered
particularly for her work and involvement
with British music and young composers
- at a time when she could have graced
the concert platforms with a much
smaller, popular repertoire.
Peter Craddock
