Formidable piano teacher’s fabulous pipe dream

Dame Fanny Waterman decides that she has given me several exclusives, that will do and the interview is at a close.

Not that she’s being rude, just that this 91 year old is a very busy woman.

Ten-hour days are regular and she has a Titanic energy that would put people half her age to shame. Not only is she president of the Harrogate International Festival, but the Leeds piano teacher is still running the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, so famous globally that it is known simply as “The Leeds”.

She is also a member of other juries and takes pupils into her North Leeds home where she dispenses advice that she has passed on to some of the great contemporary pianists. It is fair to say that when Dame Fanny decides the interview is done, it’s done.

The formidable piano teacher, whose 30 books on playing the instrument are sold around the world, is in no mood to rest on her laurels, even though 2011 marks 50 years since she had the notion of holding a classical piano playing competition in the city she had made her home.

“It was in 1961 that I sat up and said to my husband that we should have a competition in the city,” says Dame Fanny.

“It was just a pipe dream and it has become regarded as the most prestigious competition in the world.”

There is more than a hint of pride and it is something which Dame Fanny richly deserves. The first competition took two years from conception to reality, being held in the city in 1963 and has firmly established itself as the pinnacle of all piano playing competitions.

On Sunday the build-up to next year’s competition, which takes place every three years in the city, begins with a recital from the 2009 runner-up Alexej Gorlatch. At the end of April he played with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, further confirming the high status that winners of The Leeds are accorded.

The recital series, which began in 2005, was, as with most things connected to the competition, Dame Fanny’s brainwave.

She says: “It came from talking to people and realising that all the great giants of piano playing in the past were not as recognised as they perhaps should be by the young players we saw coming through.

“I was terribly fortunate to hear Rubinstein play and get to know him. The younger pianists listen to their compact discs, but they don’t know about the giants of the past they are following.

“On Sunday I have asked for the inclusion of a major Rubinstein piece and for all the recital series to include some of his work.”

The first concert on Sunday will be at the Clothworkers’ Centenary Concert Hall at the University of Leeds. It will be followed by two concerts in December, with third prize winner Alessandro Taverna playing at the venue on December 4 and the competition’s first female first prize winner, Sofya Gulyak, playing on December 11.

The concerts, as Dame Fanny says, “keep the momentum and the interest going” and are an important part of the build-up to the competition which will be held for the 17th time, in 2012. The competition costs £860,000 to run. While it receives help from the city council, the majority of this money is from private donors – the recital series is sponsored by the Audrey and Stanley Burton Charitable Trust.

In an age of cuts to the arts, Dame Fanny brushes such “nonsense” aside with ease. “People are very generous. I have never told anyone this, but after the first competition, on the Monday I received an envelope from Stanley Burton with a cheque for £5,000 and a note which said ‘this is to encourage you to continue to organise the competition’. People are very proud to have something like this in the city,” she says.

Indefatigable as she is, whenever questions of handing on the baton are raised, Dame Fanny treats them with the same disdain she might the suggestion of retiring to enjoy a gentle and quiet old age.

She does, however, for the first time, admit that she has her eye on a successor. “But I’m not going to tell you who that is.”

Leeds International Pianoforte Competition Recital Series, June 5. Info 0113 244 6586.

DISTINGUISHED COMPETITION WINNERS OF THE PAST

1963: Michael Roll: As the First prize winner of the inaugural competition, Roll has played at concert halls worldwide, appearing with conductors such as Barbirolli, Boulez and Giulini.

1969: Radu Lupu: Regarded as one of the greatest pianists of our time, Lupu’s victory in the third Competition has come to be viewed as one of the most significant moments in the history of ‘the Leeds’.

1987: Vladimir Ovchinnikov: Remains the only pianist to date to win both the International Tchaikovsky Compeititon (1982) and ‘the Leeds’, and is highly regarded in the world today.