Nancy Weir

Nancy Mary Weir (13 July 1915 – 14 October 2008) was an Australian pianist and teacher.

Weir was born in Kew, Melbourne, on 13 July 1915.

Her father was a publican who ran a small hotel in Lockhart, near Wagga Wagga, and she grew up "behind the bar".

She studied piano in Melbourne with Edward Goll (a pupil of Emil von Sauer and grand-pupil of Franz Liszt) and Ada Corder (Freeman).

She was renowned as a child prodigy, performing to great acclaim.

A review of her concert performance in December 1929 noted,

"With all her latent power, and natural gift for artistic expression, Nancy played Schumann's Scenes from Childhood, the work in which she exhibited her rare talent at the Town Hall some time ago. The unaffected simplicity of the child's playing, coupled with a sure grasp of the expressive and pictorial possibilities of the Scenes, constituted the charm of her renditions; The audience expressed the highest pleasure in Nancy Weir's Clever playing and phenomenal success."

At age 13, she performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, under the English-born conductor Fritz Hart.

Following this concert, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne set up a public subscription scheme for the young Weir to study with a great teacher in Europe.

On arrival in Berlin, Germany, in 1930, she studied first with Edwin Fischer, but wangled her own way to studying with the legendary Artur Schnabel who she said was more fashionable.

However, the "official" story is that Schnabel heard her and agreed to take her on as a student immediately.

She was described in London in the 1930s as having "the best musical ear since Mozart".

After the Nazis came to power, Schnabel left Germany in 1933, and so did Weir.

She moved to London, where she studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Harold Craxton from 1933 until 1936.

She herself became the subject of several legends.

One of these involved her being set to learn, by Craxton, the Bach-Busoni Chaconne in D minor.

She arrived for her lesson the next week and played the work from memory.

Craxton and others were astonished.

She later explained that, as a student in Berlin, she had a fellow pianist neighbour who played a certain work that she did not know, for several hours every day.

She learned this work by musical osmosis through the walls, and it turned out to be the Chaconne, which, until Craxton gave the music to her, she had never before seen.

The work became a great financial asset for her, as she could guarantee certain competition prize monies by playing it, frequently having spent the money before she luckily, and predictably, won.

Another legend centres on her phenomenal musical ear.

She could hear as many as five independent musical lines simultaneously.

Most professional musicians have difficulty with three.

She established a career as a performer In London during the period from 1936 until 1954, making her Proms debut with the Bach Concerto in A minor for 4 pianos, conducted by Sir Henry Wood.

After graduation from the Royal Academy, she also joined the Bangor Trio at the University College of North Wales.

The Second World War interrupted what promised to be a very successful career.

She signed up in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).

Her knowledge of German caused her to be transferred from the WAAF to RAF Intelligence.

When her father suffered a bout of ill-health in 1954 she returned to Melbourne to care for him, her mother having died earlier.

She eventually became what she later described as, after the 50 years exclusion period for sensitive Second World War information had expired in 1995, "a musical spy".

Her wartime duties as an intelligence officer included "sitting on a hilltop in Kent listening to the chatter of young German pilots – they were as young and foolish as we were. I think I prevented a few bomb attacks."

She eventually attained the rank of Flight Officer.

However, word of her musical status leaked out.

She was sent to Egypt and the then Palestine to entertain the troops, accompanying such artists as Paul Robeson and Beniamino Gigli.

But her ever-vigilant ear was at all times listening.

At the end of the war she was in Morocco and was told that she was to be flown to Rome, to attend the German language interrogations of POWs.

In her description of the event her unique sense of humour shines forth: "I was to fly into Rome, but the Allies had destroyed the airfield, so I had to parachute in. I think I am the only classical pianist in history who ever parachuted into Rome."

After the war she returned to performing in England, and she continued touring, making many appearances with famous conductors, including Willem van Otterloo, Alceo Galliera, Eugene Goossens, Arthur Fiedler and Nicolai Malko.

But, again in her own words "things had gone cold by then, and it was difficult to re-start the career".