CONCERT PIANIST

Press, Volume C, Issue 29657, 30 October 1961, Page 2

CONCERT PIANIST

Resumption Of Career Recently a matronly, pleas-ant-faced woman of 45, with a taste for exotic hats, smiled for press photographers at London airport, stepped into a plane and settled down unperturbed by the inquisitive gazes of fellow passengers. For the first time in 10 years the concert pianist. Moura Lympany embarked on a fullscale working tour again: to Canada. Australia, Hong Kong and India. Her decade away from the world of full-time music has been the time of her marriage to Bennet Korn, an American television executive. £5060' Alimony Now, after divorcing Mr Korn in Mexico a few weeks ago. she has decided to resume her career. Not, 1 suspect, because she needs the money (Mr Korn, who earns £28,000 a year, is paying his wife £5OOO a year alimony), but for two very personal reasons. One is that Miss Lympany is a natural musician who has never been entirely happy away from the concert hall. Cornwall-born Miss Lympany made her first appearance on the concert platform as a schoolgirl in pigtails as far back as 1928. playing Mendelssohn’s G Minor Concerto. A pupil of Rachmaninoff, she went on to win awards all over the world. The other reason for wanting to resume her career is that music has always been a balm for sadness in her life. She has had two broken marriages (her first was to Colonel Colin Defries), and she has lost three children at birth. Much ot her unhappiness has been worked off by determination and by pursuing a varied assortment of hobbies—including cooking, gardening and deep-sea fishing. But music has been the great standby. She has managed an occasional concert during her marriage and has practised constantly. As a result her touch is as brilliant as ever.