Winifred Christie

Winifred Christie (26 February 1882 – 8 February 1965)[1] was a British pianist and composer best known as an advocate of the Moór-Duplex piano. She was born in Stirling, Scotland.

Winifred Christie in 1920

The Moór-Duplex piano
A piano with two keyboards

Winifred Christie spent a significant portion of her career promoting the Moór-Duplex piano, a double keyboard with a coupler between the two manuals (an octave apart), invented by Christie’s husband, Hungarian pianist, inventor, and composer Emanuel Moór.[2][3] The Moór-Duplex aided in the playing of octaves, tenths, and even chromatic glissandos. The piano makers Steinway, Bechstein, and Bösendorfer all put the mechanism into their instruments. Christie performed on the instrument frequently in Europe and the United States and published (in collaboration with Moór) a manual of technical exercises for the instrument.

Recordings

Christie also recorded selectively for the Aeolian Vocalion and Winner recording labels.

World Première Performances

In concert, Christie premiered Edgar Bainton’s Concerto-Fantasia and, in New York, on February 23, 1916, the piano version of Charles Tomlinson Griffes' "The White Peacock" at New York's Punch and Judy Theatre.[4]Christie may have premiered Griffes, "The Fountain of the Acqua Paola and Nightfall," at Boston's Jordan Hall in 1919 (status of performance as a premiere suggested by the composer in correspondence).[5]

In 1946, Christie founded and endowed the Westminster Central Music Library in London, England with a gift of £10,000 as a memorial to her late husband.[6]

There is a scholarship fund in her name, at the Royal Academy of Music in London, given to keyboard students who perform particularly well at audition.

She died, aged 82, in London, England.

References
  1. Slonimsky, Nicolas (1984). Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. New York, New York: Schirmer Books. p. 461.
  2. "Piano recital given by Winifred Christie". The New York Times. 1934-12-14. p. 28.
  3. "Winifred Christie, Pianist, in Recital". The New York Times. 1938-03-26.
  4. Anderson, Donna K. (1993). Charles T. Griffes: A Life in Music. Smithsonian Institution Press.
  5. Dreusedow, John A. (2005). "Artistic Splendor". Notes, Reviewed Work: Henry F. Gilbert: A Bio-Bibliography by Sherrill V. Martin, pages 122-125.
  6. Kelly, Thomas (1973). A History of Public Libraries in Great Britain, 1845-1965. American Library Association.

Further reading

The Emmanuel Moor New Duplex-Coupler Pianoforte, article by F. Gilbert Webb from The Proceedings of the Musical Association, 48th Sess., (1921 - 1922), pp. 91–97, Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Musical Association.

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