Yet another pianist I’d never heard of showed up in a YouTube upload recently and I was stunned by the playing. The artist was one Hilda Bor, a pupil of Tobias Matthay and then Vivian Langrish when Matthay retired from the Royal Academy of Music. Bor later taught as a member of Matthay’s staff and arranged wartime concerts at the Royal Exchange at the same time that fellow Matthay pupil Myra Hess arranged her more famous events at the National Gallery. Among Bor’s pupils were Prince Charles and Princess Anne (the job had originally been offered to Hess but she preferred not to teach children).
The British pianist produced only two 78s for the Columbia label in the late 1930s, totalling a mere 12 minutes. The first was a July 16th 1937 disc featuring a Chopin Waltz and Prelude on one side, and two dazzling ‘bee’ works on the B-side (no pun intended): Mendelssohn’s Bee’s Wedding (aka Spinning Song) and Rachmaninoff’s arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble-bee. The second disc with three Grieg Lyric Pieces was set down on January 24, 1939. Both are presented here courtesy of Jonathan Dobson, who transferred and made them available for this upload and to whom we offer our sincerest thanks.
Bor’s playing throughout these selections features remarkable clarity of articulation and rhythmic precision in rapid passages while sustaining mindful phrasing, poised balance not only between hands but within the voicing of chords, and gorgeous ringing tone throughout. Her left-hand voicing is superb, as evidenced in the Chopin Prelude, and she maintains steadiness of rhythm and deftness of articulation in the first Grieg number even at the substantial speed that she chose (a colleague of mine stated that it was so brisk that it might be considered a shotgun wedding). In addition to her evidently polished technique, she also demonstrates fine musicianship in these rare performances.
Hilda Bor: The Columbia 78s
Chopin: Waltz in F Minor Op.70 No.2
Chopin: Prelude Op.28 No.3
Mendelssohn: Bee’s Wedding (aka Spinning Song)
Rimsky-Korsakov arr. Rachmaninoff: Flight of the bumble-bee
(recorded July 16, 1937)
Grieg – Three Lyric Pieces:
Wedding Day at Troldhaugen Op.65 No.6
Papillon Op.43 No.1
Oisillon Op.43 No.4
(recorded January 24, 1939)
On YouTube there is also an excerpt from a BBC transmission disc in which Bor plays Bartók’s Román kolindadallamok (Romanian Christmas Carols). Despite the prominent crackle from the record, we can appreciate her beauty of tone (not a given in readings of Bartók), burnished voicing, clarity of texture, and rhythmic vitality:
Bor lived until 1993 and quite why she faded from memory is a mystery (likely the lack of commercial records was a contributing factor) – a fate that has befallen too many great artists.
There’s a mini documentary that’s been produced by her great-nephew that also includes an excerpt of a BBC broadcast (a Chopin Waltz not on her 78rpm disc above) – here’s that link:
One hopes that more of this great artist will be found and made available – she was clearly a remarkable musician!
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