Alma Moodie
Alma Mary Templeton Moodie (12 September 1898[1] – 7 March 1943) was an Australian violinist who established an excellent reputation in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.
[2][3] She was regarded as being among the foremost female violinists during the inter-war years, along with such players as Erica Morini, Jelly d'Arányi and Kathleen Parlow;[4] and she premiered violin concertos by Kurt Atterberg, Hans Pfitzner and Ernst Krenek.
[14][8][15] She appeared in public recitals at age 6 – a performance in Rockhampton in October 1904 was described by a local reporter from The Morning Bulletin, "Her rendering of Renard's 'Berceuse,' accompanied on the piano by Herr Hage, showed the possibility of surprising musical gifts being developed at an extremely young age.
[6]In Meiningen, Eisenach and Hildburghausen Alma Moodie played concertos with Reger conducting,[6] and she appeared in recital with him.
[6] Alma returned to Germany in October 1918, where she lived in a 12th-century castle in the Harz mountains as ward of Fürst Christian Ernst zu Stolberg und Wernigerode.
She wanted to resume her violin playing, which had badly deteriorated during the war, and made contact with Carl Flesch in November 1919, who agreed to accept her as a pupil.
[6] In the 1922–23 season, she played ninety concerts, seventy of them in seven months, in a tour that took her to Switzerland, Italy, Paris, Berlin, and 'the Orient'.
[6] From 1922 (or earlier), the Swiss businessman Werner Reinhart became a driving force in her career and she became a regular visitor to his homes in Winterthur and other places, where she came into contact with most of the prominent names in the contemporary music scene of the day.
[28][29] Moodie became its leading exponent, and performed it over 50 times in Germany with conductors such as Pfitzner, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hans Knappertsbusch, Hermann Scherchen, Karl Muck, Carl Schuricht, and Fritz Busch.
In the meantime, Krenek's marriage to Anna Mahler had collapsed, and their divorce became final a few days after the premiere.
[6] He never managed to hear her play the concerto, but he did "immortalize some aspects of her personality in the character of Anita in his opera Jonny spielt auf".
Alma Moodie premiered it with the composer in Frankfurt on 25 November 1925, and they played it on a number of other public occasions.
[35] Arthur Nikisch wrote of her to Carl Flesch from Leipzig in December 1925: "For me, this girl is a phenomenon artistically so delightful that I regard it as my natural duty to promote the interests of this blessed creature as much as I am able".
[18] Hermann Reutter quotes her as saying "One must be at least forty to understand the greatness and depth of expression in Brahms' music.
"[36] Reutter participated in many concerts with Alma Moodie, and dedicated his Rhapsodie for violin and piano, Op.
Alma Moodie died on 7 March 1943, aged 44, during an air raid on Frankfurt,[1][6][40] although the bombs were not the cause of her death.
A doctor reported that she died accidentally of a thrombosis brought on by the mixture of alcohol and pills she had taken, but a number of her close friends believed her death to be suicide.
[6] In addition to the performances mentioned above, Alma Moodie's appearances included: In 1943, Karl Höller wrote his Violin Sonata No.
[44] Australian composer David Osborne wrote a violin concerto titled Pictures of Alma, which was premiered on 30 May 2010 by Rochelle Bryson and the Raga Dolls Salon Orchestra, at the Iwaki Auditorium, ABC Southbank Centre, Melbourne.
[45] Osborne explained in a pre-performance interview broadcast on ABC Classic FM that the work sought to depict Alma Moodie in music at various stages of her life.
