Lumen Summer 2013 - Flipbook - Page 20
story by Andrew Cook
Adelaide’s Queen
of the Piano
Maude Mary Puddy (1883-1974) was one of the 昀椀rst students
to graduate from the Elder Conservatorium of Music, and
certainly one of its more remarkable.
C
oming from a relatively modest
background, her success was
testament both to the progressive
attitude towards women and a degree of
social mobility that existed in key parts of
late 19th century Adelaide society.
Her rise to international prominence
as a pianist was also evidence of the
quality of teaching at the new Elder
Conservatorium. In the years between
her graduation in 1905 and appointment
as teacher of piano in 1920, she
distinguished herself in Europe as a
star student of the legendary Theodor
Leschetizky, and later as a teacher and
performer in her own right.
Born in 1883, Maude Puddy was
recognised as gifted from an early age.
Her father, a fitter and turner and selftaught pianist, encouraged her playing.
She attended Hindmarsh Public School
and at age nine, gave a recital at the
school’s end-of-year concert, the first of
many childhood public performances in
churches, town halls and schools. At 10,
she won joint first prize with a 15-year-old
at the Public School’s Floral and Industrial
Exhibition.
In terms of South Australian musical
education and culture, Maude was
born at the right time. In 1898, she
was just old enough to be granted a
scholarship to attend the brand-new
Elder Conservatorium of Music.
Her seven years with the
Conservatorium as a student were marked
by scholarship renewals, acclaimed
concerts and prizes in a range of areas.
In 1900, at the age of 17 she was
awarded the University’s first Associate of
Music Diploma, out-competing her male
counterparts for the honour of being the
first recipient of the new award. In 1905,
she graduated with a Bachelor of Music.
18 Lumen | Summer 2013
Like many inspired Australians before
and after her, Maude then travelled to
Europe to be closer to the source of her
art. After a year in London, she went to
Vienna where she had been accepted
as a pupil of the eminent piano teacher
Theodor Leschetizky. In the years leading
up to the First World War, she made a
name for herself as a skilled performer
and teacher. Leschetizky considered her
one of his best students, “a distinguished
pianist and teacher”. She also soaked
up the cultural atmosphere of pre-War
Vienna, writing to her father in 1910, “It
is delightful to hear the best of music
given by the best performers – in the very
best style.”
In 1919, Maude was hired by the
Elder Conservatorium as a temporary
replacement for her first professional
teacher, Immanuel Reimann.
Conservatorium Director Dr. E. Harold
Davies was quick to write to the
University Council, “I cannot too strongly
recommend that her services be – if
possible – retained. She is in every way
a great source of strength and efficiency
and deserves our utmost consideration”.
Fortunately for Davies and the
Conservatorium, the Council agreed and
Maude accepted a permanent position,
one from which she would impart for
the next three decades the wealth of
experience she had gained as a student,
teacher and performer in some of the
world’s leading musical centres.
If Maude Puddy, and later her pupils,
took Adelaide to the world, her reputation
and the connections she made whilst
overseas were responsible for bringing
some of the best in the musical world
to Adelaide. The University Archives
contain numerous inscribed photographs
of those she hosted, including fellow
Leschetizky pupils Ignaz Friedman, Benno
Moiseiwitsch and Ignacy Jan Paderewski.
World renown Australians Lauri Kennedy,
Dame Nellie Melba and Percy Grainger
also visited the Conservatorium. A
photograph given to Maude by Percy
Grainger with the hand written inscription,
“To Maude Puddy, in warm appreciation
of her exquisite artistry”, is indicative of
the esteem in which she was held by
fellow musicians.
Maude continued to give solo concerts
to a public appreciative of worldclass classical music performance.
Effusive reviews described “the finest
of musical treats”. She played with
the South Australian and Verbrugghen
orchestras, and was among the first
classical musicians to embrace wireless
broadcasting, performing on 5CL from the
late 1920s.
Maude Puddy never married and
was once described as a “missionary in
music”. She performed countless concerts
and taught many hundreds of students.
Among the photographs she donated to
the University Archives a 1911 picture of
her famous teacher, on the reverse side of
which Leschetizky had written his motto:
“No art without life, no life without art.”
This eloquent expression of the value of
a life devoted to and defined by music is
clearly something Maude took to heart.
Inset: I.G. Reimann
(Maude’s first professional
teacher); German Pianist
Wilhelm Backhaus, J.
Gravestock, Maude
Puddy, Mrs. Backhaus,
E. Harold Davies (Elder
Conservatorium Director).
June 1930, Adelaide
Railway Station.
Photo courtesy University
of Adelaide Archives
