WIFE OF FAMOUS PIANIST

Southland Times, Issue 23228, 17 June 1937, Page 15

WIFE OF FAMOUS PIANIST

Acts As Husband’s

Secretary-

Mrs Benno Moiseiwitsch, wife of the famous pianist, acts as her husband’s secretary and finds her duties so absorbing that all other interests have become secondary. “The work keeps me so busy that when there is a lull I get quite bored and nervy,” she said, in telling her story to an interviewer in Sydney.

“I had been only married 24 hours when my husband told me I was to be his secretary and gave me a letter to write,” said Mrs Moiseiwitsch. “I write all my husband’s correspondence by hand, and it is ruining my handwriting which, at the end of a letter, develops into a scrawl. I always sign myself ‘secretary,’ and use my maiden initials.

“At one time I used to paste my husband’s programmes in a book, but it got so bulky that now I rewrite them out by hand, with all references in a book. I also keep all his press cuttings, and now Boris, our son, is being interviewed at the age of six years, so I have started a press cutting book for him.” ABSORBED IN HUSBAND’S WORK Before her marriage, Mrs Moiseiwitsch lived in Shanghai, where she met her husband in the artists’ room after a concert.

“He always says he married me because he liked my mother,” laughed Mrs Moiseiwitsch. “You see, they are both Russian and she used to cook him Russian delicacies. My mother was musical, but my father used to go to sleep at concerts. “We were married in Shanghai, and since then it has been a ‘circus life.’ We travel about with golf bags and a dummy piano, which my husband, who is very considerate of neighbours, uses to practise his exercises. He always takes it to the artists’ room, and warms his hands practising scales before a concert. Other artists we have known have used electric hot water bottles or bowls of hot water.

“My own interests?” repeated Mrs Moiseiwitsch. “As you see they are all absorbed in my husband’s work. Even frocks have dimished in importance, and I had only 10 days to prepare for my trip to Australia; but as I usually wear a great deal of black, and always plainly made clothes, it was sufficient.”