DAME MYRA HESS
British pianist (1890 - 1965)

Dame Myra Hess is a monument, to music, to pianism, and to women.  She was one of the very few women whose career was equal to those of the leading male pianists of her era.  She was a pupil of Tobias Matthay, the great English piano pedagogue.  At the age of 17, she made her debut under the direction of Thomas Beecham in Beethoven's Fourth Concerto and her career was launched.

She may be most widely known not for her playing but for her transcription of Bach's "Jesu, joy of man's desiring" from Cantata 147.  She was fond of telling the story of a British soldier who whistled it on a train during the war. 

"Are you interested in Bach?", by a journalist asked the soldier.
"No", answered the soldier.
"But you are whistling a composition by Bach," said the journalist.
"That's not Bach," replied the soldier indignantly. "That's Myra Hess."

I lead with her own performance of this wonderful work as well as several short video clips recorded in 1954 from the BBC archives, not for the musical value, as they are very brief, but for a sense of her presence on stage.

Myra Hess is what I would call a profoundly serious pianist.  Her playing does not dance, it does not sparkle or glitter, there is little humor in her playing.  But it does have a depth and intensity of passion, and what she does do in taking the more somber view is nothing short of miraculous.

Her repertoire sits squarely in the essence of the Classic-Romantic eras with Bach as her point de repère and Ravel as her destination, the music to which we constantly return for sustenance. Her Beethoven and Brahms are perfect.  The recording of the Op 110 sonata of the former satisfies me in every way;  the Op 117~1 of the latter cannot, in my imagine, be improved upon.  And the way Dame Myra Hess plays the Chopin Op 49 fantasy makes me want to go back and offer that composer the rest of my life.  It is unfortunate that the recorded sound is so poor in her otherwise miraculous recording of his C minor Nocturne.

There is a fabulous performances of the Schubert B♭ major sonata, the Schumann Symphonic Etudes, and her Mozart is just so.   Myra Hess must claim her position as another on anyone's list of the top ten pianists in recorded history.

This page covers Dame Myra's recordings from Purcell to Beethoven as well as a few examples of chamber music, by Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. Go to Hess Plays the Romantics for her performances of piano music by Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, and others.  And for her performances with orchestra, including three different recordings of the Schumann concerto, go to the Dame Myra Hess plays Concerti page.

Bach  Chorale "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" from BWV 147
Scarlatti  Keyboard Sonata in G Major, K 14 / L 387

recorded in 1940