Harriet Cohen
Encyclopedia
Harriet Cohen CBE was a British pianist
.
under Tobias Matthay
, having won the Ada Lewis scholarship at the age of 12. She made her debut at a Chappell's Sunday concert at the Queen's Hall
a year later. Her first major appearance was in 1920 when she appeared at the Wigmore Hall
in a joint recital with the tenor John Coates
.
She became particularly associated with contemporary British music, giving the world premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams
' Piano Concerto
(which was written for her) and recording Edward Elgar
's Piano Quintet
with the Stratton Quartet
under the composer's supervision. A number of composers wrote music specifically for her, including John Ireland
, Béla Bartók
, Ernest Bloch
and E. J. Moeran
, and particularly Sir Arnold Bax
(Cohen's lover), who wrote most of his piano pieces for her. This includes the music for David Lean
's 1948 film version of Oliver Twist
. He also composed Concertino for Left Hand for her after she lost the use of her right hand in 1948.
The last six pieces in the collection Mikrokosmos by Bartók are dedicated to her.
Harriet Cohen dedicated an important effort to the performance of the Tudor
composers at a time when this was unusual, and gave recitals of works by William Byrd
and Orlando Gibbons
and also of Henry Purcell
. She was considered one of the finest performers of J. S. Bach
's keyboard music, winning outstanding praise from the musicologist Alfred Einstein. Pablo Casals
, also, invited her to play Bach with his orchestra at Barcelona
, and Wilhelm Furtwängler
extended a similar invitation on hearing her in Switzerland. She gave the first 'all-Bach' recital at the Queen's Hall in 1925.
She also cultivated Spanish music, and gave the second performance of Manuel de Falla
's Nights in the Gardens of Spain
, a work which became especially associated with her. She was also an early exponent of music of the Soviet Union in Britain, and visited Russia in 1935 to broadcast from Moscow and Leningrad
, including works by Shostakovich
, Kabalevsky and Leonid Polovinkin. These composers later sent her further compositions.
Cohen's influence went well beyond that of a musician. She became strongly associated in the 1930s with publicising the plight of German and Austrian Jews and even played a concert with the scientist Albert Einstein
(Alfred's cousin) in 1934 to raise funds to bring Jewish scientists out of Germany. She became close friends with Eleanor Roosevelt
and Ramsay MacDonald
as well as the first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann
.
Cohen was also close friends with many leading figures of the time. These included not only musicians such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Sir Edward Elgar and Sir William Walton
, but also novelists such as Arnold Bennett
, George Bernard Shaw
, H. G. Wells
and D. H. Lawrence
as well as politicians or entrepreneurs such as Max Beaverbrook and Leslie Viscount Runciman
. Cohen became one of the most talked-about and photographed musicians of her day.
She was Vice-President of the Women's Freedom League
, and was for several years associated with the Jewish National Fund
and the Palestine Conservatoire of Music at Jerusalem. Cohen was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE) in 1938. She died in London. The Harriet Cohen International Music Award
was introduced in her honour in 1951.
In January 2006, Dearest Tania, a words-and-music programme telling the story of Cohen, premiered, written by Duncan Honeybourne and performed with actress Louisa Clein
.
in 1930 on her first tour of America, a tour which took in New York, Washington and the Library of Congress and Chicago, thus finally establishing a name for herself on the International stage. It was a meeting that was to change Cohen's life and awake her Jewish consciousness. In 1933 Harriet Cohen traveled to Vienna to play a number of concerts, staying with Dorothy Thompson. She was profoundly moved by the plight of refugees, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who were pouring into the city from Germany. Thompson and Cohen were to correspond about the plight of Jewish refugees in Austria and Germany. Cohen was then able to pass on information from Thompson directly to the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald
, who was at this time her intimate friend. Cohen met Thompson every time she went to America thereafter. From 1933 Cohen committed herself to work in Britain and the United States on behalf of refugees. This would result in a concert in America with Albert Einstein
in 1934 to raise funds to bring Jewish scientists out of Germany.
In 1935 Ramsay MacDonald warned Cohen not to travel through Germany because the British Government would not be able to provide immunity for her. Soon after, Adolf Hitler
passed the Nuremberg laws
totally excluding Jews from public life.
Harriet Cohen had met Albert Einstein in Germany in 1929 when she had afternoon tea at his house. At the time Einstein disclosed that he played the violin and said that one day they should play together. Cohen kept her friendship with Einstein even after he had fled Germany in 1933. Cohen would often visit him in Oxford, England where he settled for a short time. In 1934, after Einstein moved to USA, Harriet Cohen did finally play that duet concert with Einstein to raise funds to bring Jewish scientists out of Nazi Germany. Cohen and Einstein remained friends thereafter and he referred to her as "the beloved piano witch".
It was not until 1939 when she first met Chaim Weizmann
, the future first President of Israel, that she began to support the Zionist cause and a Jewish homeland. Cohen's 1939 visit to Palestine extended her reputation there both as a concert pianist and politically. She argued with British and Jewish officials to try to get Jewish refugees admitted on ships from Nazi Germany (rather than be returned), once almost precipitating an International incident. Harriet Cohen believed passionately in a Jewish homeland but with justice to the Arab Palestinians. She survived two assassination attempts during her trip to Palestine. It was when Cohen was having dinner with Weizmann in London that Weizmann heard the news of the British Government's 1939 white paper to limit Jewish immigration to Britain to just 15,000 people a year. Blanche Dugdale, Lord Balfour's niece, a fellow diner, prophetically said in an agonised voice - "What will happen to the millions fleeing from Hitler?"
was another major milestone in her career. It was the country from which her ancestors had fled 100 years earlier. Not only was Cohen bringing British music to the USSR by playing pieces by Vaughan Williams
, Bax
, Bliss
and Ireland
, she also performed Shostakovitch
's Preludes, Kabalevsky's Sonatina, and the Soviet premiere of Leonid Polovinkin's Suite from manuscript. Thereafter she took their music all over Europe and was acclaimed as the first musician outside the USSR to learn Shostakovitch's Twenty-Four Preludes, which he composed in 1932 and 1933. Her contribution in bringing to the attention of the world the work of unknown Russian composers is often forgotten.
and Harriet Cohen.
Harriet Cohen's love affair with Arnold Bax lasted for over forty years until he died in 1953. It was Arnold Bax who gave Harriet Cohen the name "Tania" for which she was affectionately known by close friends and family. Their passionate affair started in 1914 when she was 19 and he was 31, although they had met two years earlier. Bax was creatively inspired by Cohen and in 1915 wrote for her within 13 days three pieces including "The Princess's Rose Garden", "The Maiden with the Daffodil" and "In the Vodka Shop".
Many believe that their time together inspired his famous tone-poem Tintagel
, in which he expressed his anguish at "the dream their world denied". Their love led to Bax's decision to leave his wife and children in 1918, but they could never live together because Bax's wife refused a divorce. Neither could their relationship be recognised publicly because of the social climate of their generation. Cohen did became pregnant with Bax's child in 1919 but she lost the child in pregnancy. Harriet Cohen's recently released letters reveal the turbulence and anguish of their separation and love. It is likely that the long standing affair denied her becoming a "Dame". Through the 1930s their relationship was less passionate as her international career flourished, nonetheless the affair continued and they remained close, as the private letters between Cohen and Bax reveal. In 1935, for example, they travelled together to Stockholm and met Jean Sibelius
, a meeting which was to influence Bax's music.
On 23 September 1947, Bax's wife Elsa died. Cohen would probably have expected to finally marry Bax after an affair that had now lasted 30 years. However events were to unfold quite differently. Bax did not even tell Cohen about the death of his wife. In fact she was only to discover this in May 1948 at a time when she was practising and recording with Bax the music that he had written for the film Oliver Twist
. She only found out about Elsa's death when her will was published, but there was another shock for Cohen. Bax revealed to Cohen that he had another secret twenty-year love affair with Mary Gleaves and was making no promises to marry anyone. This was a time when, while Cohen was losing prominence in Britain, she was playing to huge acclaim in America and internationally. On discovering Bax's affair with Gleaves in May 1948, Cohen had an accident with a tray of glasses, which severed the artery in her right hand thus restricting if not practically ending her performing career.
Bax died 3 October 1953. Cohen was deeply affected by his death and it was the moment she had always dreaded. Bax's will bequeathed half of his interest from his literary and musical compositions to Cohen for life and half to Mary Gleaves. After their death that passed to his children. Cohen also kept the property that Bax had bought her. In fact throughout Cohen's life Bax had always financially assisted Cohen.
is one of her more prominent relationships. Harriet Cohen became close to MacDonald during the period when he was Prime Minister from 1929-1935, at a time of economic instability and depression which saw the rise of Nazism and Fascism in Europe. It was rumoured that MacDonald and Cohen became lovers. Their letters reflect a closeness; and she often visited him alone at 10 Downing Street and his home in Hampstead. Certainly many people did believe they were lovers and Cohen was often referred to as "the old man's darling".
Cohen was also close to Max Beaverbrook, the founder of Express newspapers and an important entrepreneur of the day. Cohen was introduced to the business tycoon Max Beaverbrook by Arnold Bennett
in 1923. Beaverbrook was instantly charmed by Cohen and invited her to dine regularly with him from 1923 and through him met Lord Rothermere and Lloyd George
. Beaverbrook and Cohen often met up at her house, as noted in her autobiography A Bundle of Time. He was besotted with her in his own way and showered her regularly with a hundred or more roses.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
was an intimate life-long friend of Harriet Cohen. His letters to her reveal a flirtatious relationship, regularly reminding her of the thousands of kisses that she owed him. He was a regular visitor to her home and often attended Cohen's little parties that she held for her friends. She loved entertaining and inviting famous and prominent people. Cohen premiered Vaughan Williams' "Hymn Tune Prelude" in 1930 which he dedicated to her. She later introduced the piece throughout Europe during her concert tours. In 1933 she then premiered his Piano Concerto in C major, a work which was once again dedicated to her. Cohen was given the exclusive right to play the piece for a period of time.
Harriet Cohen first played for Edward Elgar
in 1914 at a party when she was 18. They became close friends and this lasted until his death in 1934. In 1933 Cohen organised a concert in his honour under the patronage of the King and Queen. Undoubtedly Elgar doted on Cohen and closely followed her career, giving her constant support. Under Elgar's direction she made a recording of his Piano Quintet
with the Stratton String Quartet. Elgar had only sketched it but he gave the short score to Harriet for the recording.
H. G. Wells
was part of Harriet Cohen's circle of male admirers from the 1920s. After Wells parted from writer and novelist Rebecca West
, it is well known that Wells took up brief liaisons with other women. Harriet Cohen is highly likely to have been one of these, as various letters from her private collection and interviews suggest. She had a magnetic personality and beauty which Wells found irresistible.
D. H. Lawrence
became a close friend of Harriet Cohen's. It was clear already in 1915 that this friendship had created some tensions between Cohen and Arnold Bax. Bax protested at Cohen's closeness to Lawrence. She told Lawrence that they would have to meet secretly. In demonstrative mood that day, Lawrence scrawled across her autograph book "The door closed". A short time later Cohen contracted tuberculosis
, possibly from Lawrence, who died of the disease in 1930. Cohen to Bax always denied any sexual relationship with Lawrence but many believed they were lovers. Nonetheless, Lawrence and Cohen remained good friends and were regularly seeing each other as least as part of a group of friends up until his death. They would often talk together about the music of their common friend, the musician Elgar.
Cohen was introduced to William Walton
in 1923 by Arnold Bennett
. They carried on a rather flirtatious friendship which Cohen described in her autobiography as "stormy but delightful". She wrote that the irritation they often felt for each other did not lessen the underlying affection. Cohen championed Walton's music both at home and abroad especially in the late 1920s and early '30s. On assigning to Cohen the premier performance of his Sinfonia Concertante in 1927 he said to her "I know it will be in safe hands".
However, her most important relationship was probably with Arnold Bennett. "Arnold Bennett, dear friend and mentor of my youth died on 27 March 1931" – wrote Cohen in her autobiography. Arnold Bennett was one of Cohen's closest friends and responsible for introducing her to many of her new friends. Bennett introduced Cohen to William Walton and Max Beaverbrook in 1923. Cohen was devastated on Bennett's sudden death from typhoid fever on 27 March 1931. She had spoken to him only a few days earlier, when he had told her how unwell he was feeling. It was Bennett who had kept Cohen on the rails for over a decade giving her honest, blunt necessary advice. Cohen listened to him and respected his judgement. He had guided her when she was in her 20s when her reputation and fame was growing both at home and abroad.
based the main character of Harriet in his short story Kangaroo
on Cohen. Kangaroo was first published in 1923 and is set in Australia
.
Rebecca West
based the main character of Harriet in her novel Harriet Hume (1929) on Harriet Cohen. The novel is described as a modernist story about a piano-playing prodigy and her obsessive lover, a corrupt politician. The novel immortalised Harriet's unfulfilled love affair with the composer Arnold Bax.
William Gerhardie
cast Cohen as the heroine Helen Sapphire in the book Pending Heaven and much of what is written mirrors Cohen's own life and character as well as her turbulent relationship with Gerhardie. Helen Sapphire is a musician who performs successfully all over Europe. She plays the harp and the piano. Gerhardie personified himself in the central character of Max who dreams about Helen.
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
.
Biography
Harriet Cohen was born in London and studied piano at the Royal Academy of MusicRoyal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
under Tobias Matthay
Tobias Matthay
Tobias Augustus Matthay was an English pianist, teacher, and composer.-Biography:Matthaw as born in London in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and were naturalised British subjects...
, having won the Ada Lewis scholarship at the age of 12. She made her debut at a Chappell's Sunday concert at the Queen's Hall
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...
a year later. Her first major appearance was in 1920 when she appeared at the Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...
in a joint recital with the tenor John Coates
John Coates (tenor)
John Coates was a leading English tenor, who sang in opera and oratorio and on the concert platform. His repertoire ranged from Bach and Purcell to contemporary works, and embraced the major heldentenor roles in Richard Wagner's operas...
.
She became particularly associated with contemporary British music, giving the world premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
' Piano Concerto
Piano Concerto (Vaughan Williams)
The Piano Concerto in C is a concertante work by Ralph Vaughan Williams written in 1926 and 1930-31 . During the intervening years, the composer completed Job: A Masque for Dancing and began work on his Fourth Symphony...
(which was written for her) and recording Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
's Piano Quintet
Piano Quintet (Elgar)
The Quintet in A minor for Piano and String Quartet, Op. 84 is a chamber work by Edward Elgar.He worked on the Quintet and two other major chamber pieces in the summer of 1918 while staying at Brinkwells near Fittleworth in Sussex. W. H...
with the Stratton Quartet
Stratton Quartet
The Stratton String Quartet was a well known British musical ensemble active during the 1930s and 1940s. They were specially associated with the performance of British music, of which they gave numerous premieres, and were a prominent feature in the wartime calendar of concerts at the National...
under the composer's supervision. A number of composers wrote music specifically for her, including John Ireland
John Ireland (composer)
John Nicholson Ireland was an English composer.- Life :John Ireland was born in Bowdon, near Altrincham, Manchester, into a family of Scottish descent and some cultural distinction. His father, Alexander Ireland, a publisher and newspaper proprietor, was aged 70 at John's birth...
, Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer.-Life:Bloch was born in Geneva and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe...
and E. J. Moeran
Ernest John Moeran
Ernest John Moeran was an English composer who had strong associations with Ireland .-Early life:...
, and particularly Sir Arnold Bax
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...
(Cohen's lover), who wrote most of his piano pieces for her. This includes the music for David Lean
David Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
's 1948 film version of Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist (1948 film)
Oliver Twist is the second of David Lean's two film adaptations of Charles Dickens novels. Following the success of his 1946 version of Great Expectations, Lean re-assembled much of the same team for his adaptation of Dicken's 1838 novel, including producers Ronald Neame and Anthony...
. He also composed Concertino for Left Hand for her after she lost the use of her right hand in 1948.
The last six pieces in the collection Mikrokosmos by Bartók are dedicated to her.
Harriet Cohen dedicated an important effort to the performance of the Tudor
Tudor period
The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII...
composers at a time when this was unusual, and gave recitals of works by William Byrd
William Byrd
William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...
and Orlando Gibbons
Orlando Gibbons
Orlando Gibbons was an English composer, virginalist and organist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods...
and also of Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
. She was considered one of the finest performers of J. S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's keyboard music, winning outstanding praise from the musicologist Alfred Einstein. Pablo Casals
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló , known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time...
, also, invited her to play Bach with his orchestra at Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, and Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
extended a similar invitation on hearing her in Switzerland. She gave the first 'all-Bach' recital at the Queen's Hall in 1925.
She also cultivated Spanish music, and gave the second performance of Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
's Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Nights in the Gardens of Spain is a piece of music by the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla...
, a work which became especially associated with her. She was also an early exponent of music of the Soviet Union in Britain, and visited Russia in 1935 to broadcast from Moscow and Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
, including works by Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, Kabalevsky and Leonid Polovinkin. These composers later sent her further compositions.
Cohen's influence went well beyond that of a musician. She became strongly associated in the 1930s with publicising the plight of German and Austrian Jews and even played a concert with the scientist Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
(Alfred's cousin) in 1934 to raise funds to bring Jewish scientists out of Germany. She became close friends with Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
and Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
as well as the first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
.
Cohen was also close friends with many leading figures of the time. These included not only musicians such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Sir Edward Elgar and Sir William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
, but also novelists such as Arnold Bennett
Arnold Bennett
- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
, George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
and D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
as well as politicians or entrepreneurs such as Max Beaverbrook and Leslie Viscount Runciman
Leslie Runciman, 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford
Walter Leslie Runciman, 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford was a prominent member of a well-known Newcastle ship-owning family.-Background:...
. Cohen became one of the most talked-about and photographed musicians of her day.
She was Vice-President of the Women's Freedom League
Women's Freedom League
The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigned for women's suffrage and sexual equality.The group was founded in 1907 by seventy members of the Women's Social and Political Union including Teresa Billington-Greig, Charlotte Despard, Elizabeth How-Martyn, and...
, and was for several years associated with the Jewish National Fund
Jewish National Fund
The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. The JNF is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organisation...
and the Palestine Conservatoire of Music at Jerusalem. Cohen was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(CBE) in 1938. She died in London. The Harriet Cohen International Music Award
Harriet Cohen International Music Award
The Harriet Cohen International Music Award was founded in 1951 by Sir Arnold Bax and others in 1951, in honour of the British pianist Harriet Cohen.- 1950s :1951*Philippe Entremont – Piano Medal1954*Ingrid Haebler – Beethoven Medal1955...
was introduced in her honour in 1951.
In January 2006, Dearest Tania, a words-and-music programme telling the story of Cohen, premiered, written by Duncan Honeybourne and performed with actress Louisa Clein
Louisa Clein
Louisa Miranda Clein is a British actress. Her mother is a professional violinist, her sister is the cellist Natalie Clein and her cousin is the author Julia Pascal. Clein played viola as a youth and was a violist with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in 1995-1996.Clein is a 2000...
.
Efforts for refugees from Nazism
Harriet Cohen met the American journalist Dorothy ThompsonDorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential women in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt...
in 1930 on her first tour of America, a tour which took in New York, Washington and the Library of Congress and Chicago, thus finally establishing a name for herself on the International stage. It was a meeting that was to change Cohen's life and awake her Jewish consciousness. In 1933 Harriet Cohen traveled to Vienna to play a number of concerts, staying with Dorothy Thompson. She was profoundly moved by the plight of refugees, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who were pouring into the city from Germany. Thompson and Cohen were to correspond about the plight of Jewish refugees in Austria and Germany. Cohen was then able to pass on information from Thompson directly to the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
, who was at this time her intimate friend. Cohen met Thompson every time she went to America thereafter. From 1933 Cohen committed herself to work in Britain and the United States on behalf of refugees. This would result in a concert in America with Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
in 1934 to raise funds to bring Jewish scientists out of Germany.
In 1935 Ramsay MacDonald warned Cohen not to travel through Germany because the British Government would not be able to provide immunity for her. Soon after, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
passed the Nuremberg laws
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
totally excluding Jews from public life.
Harriet Cohen had met Albert Einstein in Germany in 1929 when she had afternoon tea at his house. At the time Einstein disclosed that he played the violin and said that one day they should play together. Cohen kept her friendship with Einstein even after he had fled Germany in 1933. Cohen would often visit him in Oxford, England where he settled for a short time. In 1934, after Einstein moved to USA, Harriet Cohen did finally play that duet concert with Einstein to raise funds to bring Jewish scientists out of Nazi Germany. Cohen and Einstein remained friends thereafter and he referred to her as "the beloved piano witch".
It was not until 1939 when she first met Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
, the future first President of Israel, that she began to support the Zionist cause and a Jewish homeland. Cohen's 1939 visit to Palestine extended her reputation there both as a concert pianist and politically. She argued with British and Jewish officials to try to get Jewish refugees admitted on ships from Nazi Germany (rather than be returned), once almost precipitating an International incident. Harriet Cohen believed passionately in a Jewish homeland but with justice to the Arab Palestinians. She survived two assassination attempts during her trip to Palestine. It was when Cohen was having dinner with Weizmann in London that Weizmann heard the news of the British Government's 1939 white paper to limit Jewish immigration to Britain to just 15,000 people a year. Blanche Dugdale, Lord Balfour's niece, a fellow diner, prophetically said in an agonised voice - "What will happen to the millions fleeing from Hitler?"
Russian composers
The visit in spring 1935 by Cohen to the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
was another major milestone in her career. It was the country from which her ancestors had fled 100 years earlier. Not only was Cohen bringing British music to the USSR by playing pieces by Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
, Bax
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...
, Bliss
Arthur Bliss
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO was an English composer and conductor.Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army...
and Ireland
John Ireland (composer)
John Nicholson Ireland was an English composer.- Life :John Ireland was born in Bowdon, near Altrincham, Manchester, into a family of Scottish descent and some cultural distinction. His father, Alexander Ireland, a publisher and newspaper proprietor, was aged 70 at John's birth...
, she also performed Shostakovitch
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
's Preludes, Kabalevsky's Sonatina, and the Soviet premiere of Leonid Polovinkin's Suite from manuscript. Thereafter she took their music all over Europe and was acclaimed as the first musician outside the USSR to learn Shostakovitch's Twenty-Four Preludes, which he composed in 1932 and 1933. Her contribution in bringing to the attention of the world the work of unknown Russian composers is often forgotten.
Relationship with Sir Arnold Bax
"One day I will let my music give itself up to love – love without strife or fret or circumstances – just the praise to you". "My mouth longs for your soft mouth...". These are just two quotes from the recently published love letters between Sir Arnold BaxArnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...
and Harriet Cohen.
Harriet Cohen's love affair with Arnold Bax lasted for over forty years until he died in 1953. It was Arnold Bax who gave Harriet Cohen the name "Tania" for which she was affectionately known by close friends and family. Their passionate affair started in 1914 when she was 19 and he was 31, although they had met two years earlier. Bax was creatively inspired by Cohen and in 1915 wrote for her within 13 days three pieces including "The Princess's Rose Garden", "The Maiden with the Daffodil" and "In the Vodka Shop".
Many believe that their time together inspired his famous tone-poem Tintagel
Tintagel (Bax)
Tintagel is a symphonic poem composed by Arnold Bax in 1919; it is perhaps his best-known orchestral work.Bax had visited Tintagel Castle during the summer of 1917, accompanied by pianist Harriet Cohen, with whom he was carrying on an affair at the time; he dedicated the work to her...
, in which he expressed his anguish at "the dream their world denied". Their love led to Bax's decision to leave his wife and children in 1918, but they could never live together because Bax's wife refused a divorce. Neither could their relationship be recognised publicly because of the social climate of their generation. Cohen did became pregnant with Bax's child in 1919 but she lost the child in pregnancy. Harriet Cohen's recently released letters reveal the turbulence and anguish of their separation and love. It is likely that the long standing affair denied her becoming a "Dame". Through the 1930s their relationship was less passionate as her international career flourished, nonetheless the affair continued and they remained close, as the private letters between Cohen and Bax reveal. In 1935, for example, they travelled together to Stockholm and met Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
, a meeting which was to influence Bax's music.
On 23 September 1947, Bax's wife Elsa died. Cohen would probably have expected to finally marry Bax after an affair that had now lasted 30 years. However events were to unfold quite differently. Bax did not even tell Cohen about the death of his wife. In fact she was only to discover this in May 1948 at a time when she was practising and recording with Bax the music that he had written for the film Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist (1948 film)
Oliver Twist is the second of David Lean's two film adaptations of Charles Dickens novels. Following the success of his 1946 version of Great Expectations, Lean re-assembled much of the same team for his adaptation of Dicken's 1838 novel, including producers Ronald Neame and Anthony...
. She only found out about Elsa's death when her will was published, but there was another shock for Cohen. Bax revealed to Cohen that he had another secret twenty-year love affair with Mary Gleaves and was making no promises to marry anyone. This was a time when, while Cohen was losing prominence in Britain, she was playing to huge acclaim in America and internationally. On discovering Bax's affair with Gleaves in May 1948, Cohen had an accident with a tray of glasses, which severed the artery in her right hand thus restricting if not practically ending her performing career.
Bax died 3 October 1953. Cohen was deeply affected by his death and it was the moment she had always dreaded. Bax's will bequeathed half of his interest from his literary and musical compositions to Cohen for life and half to Mary Gleaves. After their death that passed to his children. Cohen also kept the property that Bax had bought her. In fact throughout Cohen's life Bax had always financially assisted Cohen.
Other relationships
The British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonaldRamsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
is one of her more prominent relationships. Harriet Cohen became close to MacDonald during the period when he was Prime Minister from 1929-1935, at a time of economic instability and depression which saw the rise of Nazism and Fascism in Europe. It was rumoured that MacDonald and Cohen became lovers. Their letters reflect a closeness; and she often visited him alone at 10 Downing Street and his home in Hampstead. Certainly many people did believe they were lovers and Cohen was often referred to as "the old man's darling".
Cohen was also close to Max Beaverbrook, the founder of Express newspapers and an important entrepreneur of the day. Cohen was introduced to the business tycoon Max Beaverbrook by Arnold Bennett
Arnold Bennett
- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
in 1923. Beaverbrook was instantly charmed by Cohen and invited her to dine regularly with him from 1923 and through him met Lord Rothermere and Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
. Beaverbrook and Cohen often met up at her house, as noted in her autobiography A Bundle of Time. He was besotted with her in his own way and showered her regularly with a hundred or more roses.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
was an intimate life-long friend of Harriet Cohen. His letters to her reveal a flirtatious relationship, regularly reminding her of the thousands of kisses that she owed him. He was a regular visitor to her home and often attended Cohen's little parties that she held for her friends. She loved entertaining and inviting famous and prominent people. Cohen premiered Vaughan Williams' "Hymn Tune Prelude" in 1930 which he dedicated to her. She later introduced the piece throughout Europe during her concert tours. In 1933 she then premiered his Piano Concerto in C major, a work which was once again dedicated to her. Cohen was given the exclusive right to play the piece for a period of time.
Harriet Cohen first played for Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
in 1914 at a party when she was 18. They became close friends and this lasted until his death in 1934. In 1933 Cohen organised a concert in his honour under the patronage of the King and Queen. Undoubtedly Elgar doted on Cohen and closely followed her career, giving her constant support. Under Elgar's direction she made a recording of his Piano Quintet
Piano Quintet (Elgar)
The Quintet in A minor for Piano and String Quartet, Op. 84 is a chamber work by Edward Elgar.He worked on the Quintet and two other major chamber pieces in the summer of 1918 while staying at Brinkwells near Fittleworth in Sussex. W. H...
with the Stratton String Quartet. Elgar had only sketched it but he gave the short score to Harriet for the recording.
H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
was part of Harriet Cohen's circle of male admirers from the 1920s. After Wells parted from writer and novelist Rebecca West
Rebecca West
Cicely Isabel Fairfield , known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public...
, it is well known that Wells took up brief liaisons with other women. Harriet Cohen is highly likely to have been one of these, as various letters from her private collection and interviews suggest. She had a magnetic personality and beauty which Wells found irresistible.
D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
became a close friend of Harriet Cohen's. It was clear already in 1915 that this friendship had created some tensions between Cohen and Arnold Bax. Bax protested at Cohen's closeness to Lawrence. She told Lawrence that they would have to meet secretly. In demonstrative mood that day, Lawrence scrawled across her autograph book "The door closed". A short time later Cohen contracted tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, possibly from Lawrence, who died of the disease in 1930. Cohen to Bax always denied any sexual relationship with Lawrence but many believed they were lovers. Nonetheless, Lawrence and Cohen remained good friends and were regularly seeing each other as least as part of a group of friends up until his death. They would often talk together about the music of their common friend, the musician Elgar.
Cohen was introduced to William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
in 1923 by Arnold Bennett
Arnold Bennett
- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
. They carried on a rather flirtatious friendship which Cohen described in her autobiography as "stormy but delightful". She wrote that the irritation they often felt for each other did not lessen the underlying affection. Cohen championed Walton's music both at home and abroad especially in the late 1920s and early '30s. On assigning to Cohen the premier performance of his Sinfonia Concertante in 1927 he said to her "I know it will be in safe hands".
However, her most important relationship was probably with Arnold Bennett. "Arnold Bennett, dear friend and mentor of my youth died on 27 March 1931" – wrote Cohen in her autobiography. Arnold Bennett was one of Cohen's closest friends and responsible for introducing her to many of her new friends. Bennett introduced Cohen to William Walton and Max Beaverbrook in 1923. Cohen was devastated on Bennett's sudden death from typhoid fever on 27 March 1931. She had spoken to him only a few days earlier, when he had told her how unwell he was feeling. It was Bennett who had kept Cohen on the rails for over a decade giving her honest, blunt necessary advice. Cohen listened to him and respected his judgement. He had guided her when she was in her 20s when her reputation and fame was growing both at home and abroad.
Cohen in novels
Harriet Cohen was portrayed in three novels. D. H. LawrenceD. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
based the main character of Harriet in his short story Kangaroo
Kangaroo (novel)
Kangaroo is a novel by D. H. Lawrence, first published in 1923. It is set in Australia.-Description:Kangaroo is an account of a visit to New South Wales by an English writer named Richard Lovat Somers, and his German wife Harriet, in the early 1920s...
on Cohen. Kangaroo was first published in 1923 and is set in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Rebecca West
Rebecca West
Cicely Isabel Fairfield , known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public...
based the main character of Harriet in her novel Harriet Hume (1929) on Harriet Cohen. The novel is described as a modernist story about a piano-playing prodigy and her obsessive lover, a corrupt politician. The novel immortalised Harriet's unfulfilled love affair with the composer Arnold Bax.
William Gerhardie
William Gerhardie
William Alexander Gerhardie was a British novelist and playwright.Gerhardie was one of the most critically acclaimed English novelists of the 1920s . H.G. Wells also championed his work...
cast Cohen as the heroine Helen Sapphire in the book Pending Heaven and much of what is written mirrors Cohen's own life and character as well as her turbulent relationship with Gerhardie. Helen Sapphire is a musician who performs successfully all over Europe. She plays the harp and the piano. Gerhardie personified himself in the central character of Max who dreams about Helen.
Further reading
- Cohen, Harriet A Bundle of Time (1969)
- Brook, Donald, Masters of the Keyboard (Rockliff, London 1955 printing), 151-152.
External links
- Harriet Cohen's Biography Website by British Local History
- The History Press - UK's leading independent book publisher
- RAM (details on collection left to the Royal Academy of Music by Harriet Cohen)
- National Portrait Gallery (78 portraits)
- Two Descendants of Moses Samuel (Genealogy site. This PDF contains much biographical information about Cohen.)
- Ken Wetherell's anecdote
- Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, 18 September 2008, Harriet Cohen (this 9 minute audio can be heard by following the link to the BBC archive)
- Harriet Cohen plays Bach choral "Ertödt' uns durch dein' Güte"