Much to do with the Leeds International Piano Competition, which she co-founded in 1961, Dame Fanny Waterman, who has died at the age of 100, was a music teacher who became one of the greatest famous in the world of music.
“I was dreaming one night,” she said of “the Leeds,” as he gained experience all over the world, “and I was so happy that I woke up my husband. Unlike Waterman, who was born in Leeds, her husband Geoffrey de Keyser, a doctor, was in London and his response was: “It doesn’t work in Leeds, it has to be in a capital city. However, she retained her guns and launched the three-year competition in her hometown, raising money from individuals, banks, local businesses and the Leeds Corporation. Her husband supported, both morally and practically, as did her friend and co-founder, the pianist Marion Thorpe – then Marion Harewood, wife of Earl Harewood and wife of the later Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe.
A little embarrassing, one of her own pupils, Michael Roll, who won the first competition, was one of only two Britons to ever do so, but, despite the controversy, the event gradually grew from what she described as “a cottage industry. ”Into one of the most important of its kind in the world. There are now five top prizes on offer, ranging from £ 25,000 down to £ 5,000, and six prizes of £ 2,000 each for the semi-finals.
The winner was offered performances around the UK, from concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hallé to a date with the Chipping Campden music festival. An equally hectic international record (more than 20 dates) also brought the winner to Hong Kong, Australia, the USA and several European locations.
Waterman lent her experience as a teacher to a global audience with a series of handbooks called Me and My Piano, created in collaboration with Thorpe. Approximately 30 books have been published, showing sales in excess of 2m. The series has established itself as the most popular piano style in China.
At the age of 89 she presided over the Harrogate international festival, intending to make her mark on it. As she said at the time: “I look forward to returning [it] to the days of glory. I have already called Bryn Terfel and Alan Bennett. “
In 2015 she stepped down as Leeds chairman and artistic director, and wrote her autobiography, My Life in Music, telling the story of how she rose from a humble beginning to a doyenne of the world of piano competition. The closeness of the latter was also discussed by Wendy Thompson in their book Piano Competition: The Story of the Leeds (1990).
She was born in Leeds, to Mary (nee Behrmann) and Myer Waterman (formerly Wasserman). Her father was a Russian Jew who came to Britain to work as a jeweler and her business was later dismantled by her own work ethic. At Allerton High School Fanny played for a morning assembly, her parents scrambled the money together for piano lessons, and went on to study with the piano Cyril Smith at the Royal College of Music. She played with the Leeds Symph Society in 1941 and at the Henry Wood Promenade concert in 1942 in Bach’s Concerto for Three Keyboards in C major, BWV 1064, under Sir Adrian Boult.
Called for work in World War II, she made a big dent in the choice to teach. After the birth of her first son in 1950, she gave up her concert career and continued to teach, but it was the Leeds competition that was going to be the real responsibility of her life. Although confident about her own performance – “It is now the largest piano competition in the world. I put Leeds on the map, ”she once said – she was not slow to believe Thorpe and her husband’s submission (“ my rock and inspiration: I couldn’t have been do without ”), despite his initial suspicions about the place. De Keyser had a good knowledge of music and selected the Leeds competition repertoire three times, designing the rules as well – rules that became the norm for music competitions around the world.
She got to know Thorpe as the mother of one of her students. There were other private scholars at that time followed by Allan Schiller, Paul Crossley and Benjamin Frith. Several of her students have won prizes in Leeds, Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein, Busoni, London International and Geneva competitions. After the controversial result of the first tournament, there was further trouble in 1969 when the Roman piano Radu Lupu was placed just in fourth place by the jury after the second round, thus expelling him. the final round.
To his credit, Waterman recognized Lupu ‘s unique ability and demanded that the number of finalists be increased from three to five. “It was terrible,” she said openly. “I told the judges, look, if Radu Lupu doesn’t make the final, I’m not running another competition. As simple as that. Lupu went on to achieve something close to cult status, and few would question the validity of Waterman’s intervention. It was similar to her management style, however: she was resolute and clear, indeed unbelievable, describing herself as the “field merchant” behind the competition.
It was not her duty to serve one of her dukes to take it lightly. “My first rule is: no alcohol at mealtimes,” she said. “I’ve been to too many judging panels where people have fallen asleep.” The method of judgment was laid down at an early stage, following its approach to the famous teacher Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger agreed to come to one condition, “that there should be no debate among the judges. Each member of the panel would simply put three names – first, second and third – in a ballot. And that’s the way it’s been done ever since. “
The background of the Waterman family, and undoubted wartime experiences also left me with an almost mythical frugality, which, along with its direct approach, may seem a bit daunting. Her views on the future of piano playing in Britain were generally skeptical. The country did not exclude actors who could compete internationally, it continued to blame the size of electric keyboards (“waste of time”), telephones. hand-removing children from their practice, and a general lack of the strict discipline necessary to pursue a professional career at the highest level. She remembered Clifford Curzon telling her that he had learned eight lessons to perfect one Beethoven chord.
She was also of the opinion that young British pianists had too little repertoire, familiar with perhaps three or four Beethoven sonatas rather than all 32. But if very few British pianists won awards at Leeds, it is true also, despite strong performances from China, Russia and elsewhere, in recent decades there have been very few stars in music composition. With perhaps one or two exceptions one has to go back to 1990 and earlier to find players of the image of Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida (runner Dmitri Alexeev in 1975), Lars Vogt, Noriko Ogawa, Boris Berezovsky, Louis Lortie, Peter Donohoe and András Schiff were among the winners. Following Waterman’s retirement from Leeds, the international reach of the competition was augmented under the co-artistic directors Paul Lewis and Adam Gatehouse in 2016. The latter became the sole artistic director in 2019 , with Perahia as supporter and Lang Lang as global ambassador.
In the final stages of her career Waterman regularly served on several other judges, including Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Horowitz and Chopin competitions. She had little truck with objections to the idea of music competitions: “Humanity is competitive by nature” is her strong response, countering criticism that the pianists will not be more specific and poetic – especially Lupu – often successful in competitions.
Whatever one views the competition process, Waterman was undoubtedly part of the nation’s music brand. She was ordained an OBE in 1971, went on to a CBE in 1999 and in 2005 was made a goddess. In 2006 she gained the freedom of the city of Leeds. She also received honorary doctors from the universities of Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan and York and was a member of the Royal College of Music.
De Keyser, whom she married in 1944, died in 2001. Their two sons, Robert and Paul, and six grandchildren are still alive.
• Fanny Waterman, pianist, born March 22, 1920; died December 20, 2020