Lili Kraus—Teacher At Age Of Eight

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28936, 2 July 1959, Page 2

Lili Kraus—Teacher At Age Of Eight

Lili Kraus, the distinguished concert pianist, paused at noon yesterday from her practice on a Steinway in the Christchurch broadcasting studios to talk a little about her feeling for music. It was evident from her earliest childhood that music would be her “glowing love,” she said. She had felt ever since that she must share the gift God gave her through teaching, recording and giving concerts. “I was cut out for teaching, I know, and at the age of eight’ I took my first pupil—a child of six,” said Miss Kraus. This was in Budapest, where Miss Kraus was born. She explained that the names of the most gifted and most needy children at the school were listed on the blackboard for teaching jobs. “We were very poor but it was not only this that made me teach so young,” she said. “It was the compelling urge to impart musical knowledge. I also learned much from those I taught.” Neither of her parents were professional musicians, although they had a deep love of music. An uncle was first violinist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. First Adult Pupil

When she was 11 years old she took her first adult pupil. With a lively sense of fun she recalled the incident, when she knocked at the door of her pupil. “I was the smallest, thinnest child, and there, towering over me, was a huge woman 43 years old. She was flabbergasted when I said: ‘Please, I am your new piano teacher’; but I became her teacher and a very strict one. too,” Miss Kraus said. Since those days Lili Kraus has travelled far in miles and achievements. She has been acclaimed in all the world’s capitals for her mastery of the keyboard and her sensitive playing.

“Where do I live? I seem to live mostly on aeroplanes," Miss Kraus replied when asked where she made her permanent home. After World War II and her release from Internment in Java she lived for some time in New Zealand and became a citizen of this country. , California and London

When she is not travelling, she divides her time between California and Ixmdon, Where she and her son-in-law have just bought a house.

“My son-in-law, Fergus Pope, is a young American taking medical training at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He is a friend of Dr. Schweitzer and hopes to work with him later at his mission hospital,” she said. A son, who also lives in England, works in atomic science. Both her children pharecL tier love of music; her daughter sings well and her son plays the ’cello, she said.

Miss Kraus spoke gratefully of the wonderful teachers she had studied with. She began her studies with a pupil of Busoni at the Royal Academy, Budapest Later she was a pupil of Bartok and Kodaly. Others who have taught her include Eisenberger, a pupil of Letchetitsky, and Steuermann, who was a friend and disciple of Schoenberg, she said.

Asked whether she preferred playing as a soloist or with an orchestra, Miss Kraus replied: “Just as long as Lili Kraus is playing in her best form, I have

no preference.” But, she said, if the understanding between a conductor and herself was such that together ttiey could get across what both strove for, she was satisfied. It was a rare but wonderful experience. She was happy to say that with John Hopkins she had attained that understanding. It was delightful to find such an improvement in the National Orchestra since she had last heard it, she said, and to be back in New Zealand was a great pleasure. It was like coming home and she was touched by the warmth of her welcome.

Miss Kraus still likes to fit teaching into her programme when an especially brilliant pupil is brought to her. After a recent tour of South Africa the parents of a promising Brazilian student persuaded her to take their daughter to the United States and give her tuition whenever she could. She felt bound to continue teaching special pupils when her career permitted. "This gift that the Lord has given me—l must impart.”