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The
mid 1930s saw her accompanying Dora Labette ('Liza Perli') and Dino Borgioli,
touring to Las Palmas and Tenerife in 1935 and Berlin in '36 and '37.
Although Grainger's interest and encouragement with DLW had galvanized
Kitty into composition after a considerable hiatus (the events of the
recent past had
"...hurt
me terribly and made me give up everything"), the only mention in her
correspondence with PG of further compositions besides Arc-en-ciel
is of a Coronation Song in 1938 (for Edward VIII)
...which
Lesley Boosey seemed to think a lot of and we spent weeks over it. Firstly
the words had to be scrapped on account of the abdication of Edward. Cyril
[Scott] had a shot, but it was no good.
The
war years had been particularly grey and depressing for her, it seems.
She spent most of the time "doing war work" in London (working night-shifts
in an ambulance station) and Southampton, lost touch with many of her
musical contacts and did not have any opportunities to hear concerts,
being in a 'banned area'. Her health was poor and she contracted tuberculosis,
which hardly helped her brooding depression; all incentive to produce
music seems to have left her during this time and her questions and reflections
in the letters to Percy Grainger reveal a sadly shallow (not to mention
anti-semitic) way of thinking. In a letter of July 1945 she asks him for
his
...view
on Religion and things of that sort and why we are here etc. and if we
make our own lives, or are they already mapped out before our birth?
Regrettably,
Percy's reply is not extant.
Her
doctors advised that Kitty should seek a dry climate for the TB and so,
in any case feeling homesick, she applied at Australia House for a passage
home in September 1944. It would be over two years before she would be
able to obtain one. In the meantime, back in London after the armistice
her spirits revived a little and she made efforts to get back into music,
auditioning for a musical in Drury Lane and writing out parts for the
musical score by Christian Darnton for the film The Antwerp Story.
On
14th January 1947 she arrived in Melbourne, then went to stay with her
son and family in Sydney. After some time in Melbourne and Tasmania, where
she broadcast and played the piano on ABC radio in Hobart, she returned
to Sydney in 1948. It was hard to find a flat - the place was "choc-a-bloc
with DPs" - but she found one, and some pupils. Eugene Goossens, then
Director at the Sydney Conservatorium, said he wanted to put her on the
teaching staff but appears to have strung her along. When she was offered
a job at 7LA community radio in Launceston in 1950, she took it.
Her
health was much improved and she had a good many pupils both in town and,
for two days a week, in the surrounding country.
One
pupil from Campbelltown remembers her as "...a very old lady, somewhat
formidable - she was unable to continue lessons in Campbell Town but took
pupils at her home in High Street, Launceston, and I went there for a
time." She also gave monthly recitals for 7NT, the ABC station in Launceston.
In
1953 her health took a turn for the worse and goitre was eventually diagnosed.
Even after it had been operated on, she was no longer able to continue
her country teaching. She had, however, a great many pupils in Launceston
and kept teaching throughout the '50s, doing "scarcely any composing -
just a few scrappy things."
Her
last letter to Percy Grainger is dated October 31st 1960. She advises
him that she intends to move to Sydney on December 14th to live with her
sister there, where she will rest and do less teaching. She writes that
she had sent a song to London but
I
never heard from Lesley Boosey (even to say he had received the song I
told you about). I used to know him quite well. The words I thought were
lovely - I'll write them down on the back of this - yours affectionately,
Kitty
She
did make the move to Sydney, dying there in 1971. There is no Probate
or Administration for Kitty in NSW or Tasmania and all that Michael Eisdell
had of his mother's music was lodged with either the Grainger Museum in
Melbourne or the ABC Music Library in Sydney. Her sister Reike, a musician
who settled in Queensland, may have been given some documents, as might
a Mrs Macnamara of Launceston who shared Kitty's love of gramophone records
and the radiogram. Perhaps even Hubert held some of the manuscripts in
Canada and it is just conceivable that some of his own songs were, in
fact, written by his first wife.
It
may be that Kitty Parker really did not write very much music at all and
that the bulk of her composing was done before 1930 and the break-up of
her marriage.
When
her heart ceased to sing, so did her muse. Forgive the winsome sentiment,
but I feel it quite apt to an essentially simple soul.
In
the words of Percy Grainger:
It
is a crying shame you do not compose more. 'Down Longford Way' is full
of sheer genius - especially that genius I feel counts most: a sense of
largeness in form and the ability to unfold naturally. You are one
of the few who could write large works (such as symphonies) without
seeming (what is called here) "too hot for your pants". Australia needs
great (not merely slick) musicians such as you are. How I wish
you could settle down to a life of composing great works to the glory
of our darling country.
And
in Kitty's own:
...all
incentive seems to have left me - am a person who wants stimulating as
I have never felt I was any good at anything. I can only hope to
push others on and that seems to have been all I have done for years.
Whenever I am with musicians I want creep into a shell or hide myself
in a farthermost corner and yet I feel that I had something in me to have
done so much more than I have done in every way.
What
is clear, though, is that this greatly under-nourished talent was valued
by Grainger as something very special and its lack of fulfilment except
for a few charming piano pieces and songs is something of a tragedy. Down
Longford Way has a spark of genius in it which, understandably, appealed
to Grainger, given its harmonic language which borrowed discreetly from
his own yet exhibited a sure and individual voice. Songs like the six
of 1928, in particular I am disquieted, have a quality difficult
to define but rare in their mysterious sensibilty. It is no surprise that
a woman composer of a very few small pieces should have been forgotten
but a shame, nonetheless, considering the worth of the compositions themselves
and the unusual place their composer occupied in Australian music. It
is worth considering, too, that her work was published by no fewer than
six companies: Winthrop Rogers, Chappell, Cary, Francis Day & Hunter,
Newman and Augener (all in London). This fact alone should have ensured
that her music enjoy more attention than it has.
©Christopher
& Ian Munro 2000
With
grateful acknowledgement of the assistance given by the staff of the Grainger
Museum, the University of Melbourne
•list
of works
•CD
recording of Down Longford Way
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