61 Facts About Eileen Joyce

Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG was an Australian pianist whose career spanned more than 30 years.

Eileen Joyce's recordings made her popular in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly during World War II.

Eileen Joyce became even better known during the 1950s, when she played 50 recitals a year in London alone, which were always sold out.

Eileen Joyce performed a series of "Marathon Concerts", playing as many as four concertos in a single evening.

Eileen Joyce's playing of the second movement of Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto in the films Brief Encounter and The Seventh Veil helped popularise the work.

Eileen Joyce was born in Zeehan, a mining town in Tasmania.

Eileen Joyce was born in Zeehan District Hospital and not, as many reference works claim, in a tent.

Eileen Joyce frequently claimed her birthday was 21 November in either 1910 or 1912, but a search of Tasmanian birth registrations shows she was born on 1 January 1908.

Eileen Joyce attended St Joseph's Convent School in Boulder where she was taught music by Sister Mary Monica Butler.

When she was aged 13, her family's financial circumstances meant that Eileen Joyce had to leave school.

Eileen Joyce made Eileen known to a visiting Trinity College examiner, Charles Schilsky, a former violinist with the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris.

Eileen Joyce approached the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Perth and arranged for Eileen to be sent to Loreto Convent in Claremont, Perth, to continue her schooling.

Eileen Joyce entered the 1925 and 1926 Perth Eisteddfods, winning the Grand Championship in 1926.

Eileen Joyce heard her play, and then wrote an open letter to the people of Perth:.

Eileen Joyce heard her and suggested the Leipzig Conservatorium, then regarded as the mecca of piano teaching, would be more suitable.

Eileen Joyce then went to the Royal College of Music in London where, with assistance from Myra Hess, she studied under Tobias Matthay.

Eileen Joyce had lessons with Adelina de Lara for a short period in 1931.

In 1934, for the Proms' 40th season, Eileen Joyce played Busoni's Indian Fantasy.

Eileen Joyce became one of the BBC's most regular broadcasting artists, as well as being in demand for concert tours in the provinces.

Eileen Joyce was a frequent performer in Jack Hylton's "Blitz Tours" during the war, and she appeared regularly at the National Gallery concerts organised by Dame Myra Hess.

Eileen Joyce changed her evening gowns to suit the music she was playing: blue for Beethoven, red for Tchaikovsky, lilac for Liszt, black for Bach, green for Chopin, sequins for Debussy, and red and gold for Schumann.

Eileen Joyce bought gowns specially designed by Norman Hartnell to cover the cast, and she often wore Hartnell thereafter.

Eileen Joyce had numerous recital programs and over 70 concertos in her repertoire, including such unusual works as the Piano Concerto in E-flat major by John Ireland and Rimsky-Korsakov's Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor.

However, there were three concertos that Eileen Joyce played more than any others, and were her firm favourites: the Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor, the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1, and most of all, the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No 2.

Eileen Joyce appeared with all the principal UK orchestras as well as many overseas orchestras.

Eileen Joyce toured Australia in 1936, during which she was the soloist at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra's first Celebrity Concert, conducted by William Cade.

Eileen Joyce toured in 1948, and performed the Grieg concerto at the gala opening concert of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, under Joseph Post.

Eileen Joyce had planned to tour the United States in 1940 and 1948, but both tours were cancelled, the first one on account of the war.

Eileen Joyce had earlier appeared with them in Britain in 1948, on the orchestra's first major overseas tour.

Eileen Joyce was never particularly popular or even well known in the United States, and she never returned.

Eileen Joyce was the first British artist for more than a decade to give concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Eileen Joyce toured Germany again in 1949 and 1958, Italy in 1948, Belgium in 1950 and 1952, South Africa in 1950, and Norway in 1950.

Eileen Joyce had planned to tour Sweden on that trip, but fell down a flight of stairs after performing the Grieg concerto in Oslo, and the remainder of her trip was cancelled.

Eileen Joyce did visit Sweden in 1951 and 1954, Yugoslavia in 1951, visiting Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana, Brazil and Argentina in 1952, Finland in 1952, Spain and Portugal in 1954, the Soviet Union in 1956 and 1958, Denmark and other Scandinavian countries in 1958, and India and Hong Kong in 1960.

In November 1948, Eileen Joyce broke the previous record of 17 appearances at London's Royal Albert Hall in a single calendar year.

Eileen Joyce had often performed two concertos in a single concert and, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, she gave a series of "Marathon Concerts", in which she played up to four concertos in a single evening.

Eileen Joyce expressed a new-found interest in the harpsichord, receiving lessons from Thomas Goff and, in 1950, she gave the first of a number of harpsichord recitals.

In 1956, Eileen Joyce was Gerard Hoffnung's first choice as soloist in Franz Reizenstein's parodic Concerto Popolare, to be played at the inaugural Hoffnung Music Festival, but she declined, and the job went to Yvonne Arnaud.

Eileen Joyce appeared as soloist at Sir Colin Davis's debut as a conductor, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, on 22 September 1957, playing Tchaikovsky's Concerto No 1.

Eileen Joyce did return to the concert platform a handful of times over the next 21 years, the first not until 1967, when she played Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No 2 with the RPO conducted by Anatole Fistoulari, at the Royal Albert Hall.

Eileen Joyce appeared again with Geoffrey Parsons on 29 November 1981 at a fund-raising concert at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Eileen Joyce gave Rex Hobcroft an anonymous donation of $20,000 for the competition.

Eileen Joyce was Music Patron for the 4th SIPCA in 1988.

Eileen Joyce said "he was the only one who got inside my soul".

Eileen Joyce provided the playing for the piano music in the 1945 film The Seventh Veil, but this was uncredited in the film.

Eileen Joyce appeared in Battle for Music, a 1945 docu-drama about the struggles of the London Philharmonic Orchestra during the war, in which a number of prominent composers and performers appeared as themselves.

Eileen Joyce played this for the film, with Muir Mathieson conducting.

Bliss wrote this out as a stand-alone concert piece, which Eileen Joyce both premiered in 1945 and recorded in 1946.

Eileen Joyce was in the 1946 British film A Girl in a Million, in which she plays a part of Franck's Symphonic Variations.

Prelude: The Early Life of Eileen Joyce by Lady Clare Hoskyns-Abrahall was a best-selling 1950 biography that was translated into several languages as well as Braille.

Eileen Joyce briefly appeared as herself at the start and end of the film, playing the Grieg concerto.

In 1971, Eileen Joyce was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music by the University of Cambridge.

Eileen Joyce was extremely proud of that and insisted on being referred to as "Doctor Joyce".

Eileen Joyce was awarded similar honours by the University of Western Australia in 1979 and the University of Melbourne in 1982.

Eileen Joyce was the subject of photographic portraits by Cecil Beaton, Angus McBean and Antony Armstrong-Jones.

Eileen Joyce's surviving recordings show that such patronising judgements were very misplaced.

Eileen Joyce was a fine musician and technically very proficient.

On 16 September 1937, Eileen Joyce married Douglas Legh Barratt, a stockbroker.

For reasons she never explained, Eileen Joyce always maintained he had died off North Africa but, in 1983, she corrected the record.

Eileen Joyce experienced considerable ill health throughout her adult years, particularly severe rheumatism in her shoulders, which at one time necessitated the wearing of a plaster cast, and she suffered from sciatica.

Eileen Joyce died 25 March 1991, aged 83, at East Surrey Hospital, Redhill, Surrey.