Exploring the letters of legendary musician Miriam Hyde with Celia Craig

Catherine Anderson: Okay. Good evening and welcome to those present and those who are attending online to the National Library of Australia. I'm Catherine Anderson and I'm one of the co-chairs of the Friends of the National Library.  

I would like to acknowledge Australia's First Nations people as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land, and give respect to the Elders past and present and to them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.  

This evening's presentation, Meeting Miriam, is by 2024 Creative Arts Fellow, Ms Celia Craig. Our distinguished Creative Arts Fellowship program supports researchers to make intensive use of the National Library's rich collections through residencies of four weeks. The Friends of the National Library are delighted to support Ms Craig's fellowship on the early life of Dr Miriam Hyde. There'll be time for questions later and for those attending online, you may also be able to put questions through that way.  

Just I'm gonna talk a little bit briefly about Celia. Celia is an associate of the Royal Academy of Music since 1997. She has an extended list of achievements as a musician, giving Australian premieres of contemporary oboe concerti, performing chamber works and is a sought-after orchestral player. On a personal note, my experience in my teenage years in learning the oboe is it's a fiendishly difficult instrument to play, but in the hands of a gifted player like Celia sounds sublime. Celia also has an entrepreneurial streak as the Creative Director of Artaria and she has established a record label.  

Tonight, Celia will present her research findings on the early life of teenage virtuoso and synesthete, Dr. Miriam Hyde. Using letters and manuscripts in the National Library's collection, Celia will tell the remarkable story of Miriam Hyde, who sailed halfway across the globe from Australia's oldest music institution in South Australia on a major scholarship to the Royal College of Music. Her aim is to restore Miriam Hyde in public sight from the elderly lady who wrote much loved easy exam pieces when she was in Sydney later on to the cenesthetic virtuoso visionary student from Adelaide who took London by storm. Please join me in welcoming Ms. Celia Craig.   

Celia Craig: Thank you so much. And I would also like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this land and pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to acknowledge and welcome any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may be attending today's event or viewing this talk online. And I would like to mention Spanish pianist, Antonio Oyarzabal, whose beautiful playing we heard as we were walking into the theatre.  

So who was Miriam Hyde? Born in 1913 in Adelaide, Miriam Hyde won the prestigious triennial Elder Overseas Scholarship at the age of 19 to study as a scholar at the Royal College of Music and to be taught by the highest ranking teachers that London had to offer. While she was there, she wrote, orchestrated, and performed her own first piano concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, played Beethoven's fourth piano concerto, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent with her own composed cadenzas to a sold out hall. She performed her second piano concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Constant Lambert, and she broadcast for the BBC with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Maida Vale Studios.  

She suffered what is known as a nervous collapse and spent some time in hospital and her mother came over from Adelaide to care for her. However, she recovered well because many of her biggest performances in London happened after. She was one of two students who took the prestigious ARCM composition exam and won several prizes for composition along the way. She also graduated with an LRAM from the Royal Academy of Music, as well as attracting a mysterious agent called Mr. Smirnoff. Not bad for a female from Adelaide in the 1930s. And did I say she composed and performed everything from memory?  

Today, most people in Australia know Miriam Hyde from their piano exams, but she also played a soloist with most of the Australian orchestras, and she travelled back to the Royal College of Music again by herself to give a solo recital, from memory of course, at the age of 84. She also recorded her piano concerti in Perth much later in her life at age 67, and then later, again, at the age of 89, she performed her second piano concerto with Strathfield Symphony Orchestra from memory.  

In this talk, we're going to examine Miriam's student years in London. We're going to look at her work through the lens of neurodiversity and examine how her unique perception and mental abilities fueled her artistry. We can consider her musical process by focusing on one of Miriam's first chamber compositions to briefly illustrate her creative journey. My group, Tarrawatta Trio, live recorded her Fantasy Trio opus 26 recently. So later, I will share some of this rarely performed chamber work recorded live in Miriam's own venue, the Adelaide Town Hall.  

So who am I and why am I interested in this story? During my life, I have traced Miriam's travels, but in the opposite direction. I live in Adelaide. From 2011 to 2018, I was the principal oboe of Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and I taught oboe at Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide, which is where Miriam was trained. But really I'm from London. Between 2003 and 2007, I was the principal cor anglais and for a while chairman of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, based at the Albert Hall as resident orchestra for the Sir Henry Wood Proms. I left the BBC Symphony Orchestra in England for family reasons, and I came first to Sydney and then to Adelaide. But I've played in the London Symphony and the London Philharmonic and many of the others. I've given master classes at the Royal College, although my own studies were at the Royal Academy of Music and at the University of York. But Miriam's descriptions of musical life in London have a real resonance for me, and also I know how good she was to be getting those kind of gigs. I could picture exactly where Miriam had been, and so it was lovely to be reading her letters about London and about Adelaide.  

Therefore, although I don't have the same AMEB piano exam background to Miriam Hyde as so many people in Australia do, having heard her name a bit around Adelaide, I was attracted to research more about Miriam's story because there is one other parallel. I'm a synesthete, I see colour in music and I've done it all my life and so did Miriam. And also, I was once a young violinist and I won a scholarship to the Purcell School in Harrow on the Hill, which entailed leaving home and boarding in London, age 16. I also had a lot of friends at the Royal College then, so I went in and out of the building regularly. Thrilling, as Miriam would say. At that time, I was working really hard, two first study instruments, practising for hours every day and seeing so much colour in my music. It sort of helped with practising because when you see the colours so strongly, you know you've got it right, they're kind of right in front of you, and the intensity of the colour means that you're in tune and it's accompanied by very strong emotion.  

So it's usually really fun, but it can be quite a lot, especially if you're under pressure. My timetable was intense and I suffered a bit of a breakdown at school from working too hard and being under stress in a new environment. So my interest was raised by this mention of Miriam's fragility, combined with high achievement. It sounded familiar, and I wanted to know more.  

Alongside her much quoted nervous collapse, another passage from an obituary caught my eye. “Her polite manner was born of the gentile Adelaide ways of her youth. But like many artists, she could be meticulous to the point of obsession. In addition to receiving poems and cricket scores, correspondents were sometimes blessed with details, the imperative for which remained obscure, such as the number of blades of grass in a particular area of her backyard.” And I was thinking, hmm, that sounds like neurodiversity.  

And it's an eyeopener that I'm only now discovering so many hidden stories of talented women in music. I really think that this story deserves to be told, to inspire and celebrate new generations of musicians, male and female, and to recalibrate her legacy.  

Miriam's autobiography opens like this. “This is not the account of a spectacular international career. Perhaps my ability has been too limited for that, or perhaps I've not been aggressive enough, but it is the story of a woman who, like many others, has gone through life trying to keep a balance between the harmony of the home and the fullest possible development of talents which were recognised at a very early age. I have been associated with Sir Malcolm Sargent, Constant Lambert, Percy Granger. I have heard in person Medina, Rachmaninoff, Paderewski, Prokofiev, Elizabeth Schumann, Rubenstein. Is a pity to shuffle off this mortal coil without passing on some of my experiences to those who may be interested, perhaps to research scholars in the future.”  

So Miriam's archives that were donated in 2004 include a huge number of scores and letters. In the four years she was in London, she wrote 166 letters home and they go between 10 and 45 pages each. They're all annotated, firstly with her own little drawings, and then again in red pen in the 1980s. She's a vivid correspondent who uses many words, and anyone who gets messages or letters from me will recognise that connection. So I often felt as if she was talking to me so naturally, that's why I called this talk Meeting Miriam, because I wish I had.  

Who was she writing to? So Miriam's letters are basically addressed to her mother, Muriel Gmeiner Hyde, although they also include her father and her sister, Pauline. But it was in the musical relationship with her mother that Miriam was really confiding. Muriel was a professional pianist who accompanied and worked with Percy Granger. Miriam knew that her mother was able to understand and learn vicariously through her letters, on this thrilling opportunity to study at one of the world's most elite music institutions. And the way that Muriel had raised both of her girls through music is pertinent in the light of new research on synesthesia and giftedness that we're gonna hear later. “My earliest recollections include some sort of music. My sister and I often went to sleep with the strains of mother's practising , subconsciously becoming aware of masterpieces of piano literature. Two of our favourite games were crescendos and bagpipes. Sometimes when we'd finish a meal, we'd say, play crescendos, mummy, whereupon she as conductor, would indicate a range of dynamics from PP to FF, while we all banged our feet. And for bagpipes, three of us would drone a tonic while mother would improvise a Scottish ditty, making use of the flat and seventh for authenticity. We made up tunes on empty jam jars, we noticed whose porridge bowl had the lowest or the highest note, and mother would say, second inversion of a dominant seventh, B flat, D flat, E flat, G. We were acutely sound conscious.”  

Younger sister, Pauline, also won a prestigious scholarship later, by the way. And Miriam already knew that she had both perfect pitch and synesthesia, which together, by the way, is a special type of genius. They're not connected. So both together enables a particular type of brilliance.  

We can see from the letters that the professor at RCM spotted this immediately on her entrance exam, at least the perfect pitch. He was Howard Hadley, who became her piano teacher, until later she went to Arthur Benjamin. Howard Hadley also had perfect pitch.  

Miriam's father, Clarence Hyde, worked his whole life for the Adelaide Steamship Company, and his job enabled the family to take some journeys on passenger boats, so she was not at all phased by a travelling halfway around the world. In fact, she loved it. Typically, she researched the route and she knew all the stops in advance, taking advantage of the opportunities to visit new countries. As you can see, the stop in Columbo made a great impression and her letters are full of excited descriptions and drawings of the rickshaws, the colours and smells of the east. She's always experiencing everything through multiple senses. Six weeks later, she eventually got off at Tilbury Docks full of excited descriptions of deciduous trees and terraced houses, which all look the same, especially in the fog.  

So these are the things I've found in her letters. About her character, everybody liked her. Miriam left the Elder Conservatorium with a sweet letter from her friends in Adelaide, which was sent with every good wish for and every confidence in her future career, from her fellow students of the [unclear] course. And in her first day at the RCM, she wrote, “what a funny place. They were all in fear and trembling. They were waiting saying how terrible it is waiting for exams. But personally, I felt just as happy as in my own home.”  

We will read how synesthesia affected Miriam in concerts, lessons, composition, performances, and in her sensory experience of the world. “Mr Hadley this morning was so bright and breezy and nice. He said, he'll see what prizes I might have a chance for. He also says there might be some medals available. I prefer cash though. He said that when he first met me, he thought to himself, there's a girl with plenty of ability who plays like a musician.” And she loved her dictation classes, Oral with Mr. Allchin. “Finished, he said. You've got a good memory and absolute pitch. The same thing with the next phrase. You splendid girl, he said, that's quite right. He seemed quite interested after a third recurrence. Let's see how our prize girl's getting on.” She was continually at the top of the achievements for both piano and composition.  

And I've put at the bottom here, resilience including dentistry because dentistry is a continual issue in the letters. I was literally gobsmacked myself and horrified to find that due to an abscess, she suddenly had to have her two front teeth removed during the first term and replaced, at very short notice and at vast cost, five pounds, which was the same price as she won in the Arthur Sullivan Competition Prize. She had this massive prize, she had to spend it at the dentists. She almost ran out of money because in addition, there were frequent fillings and drillings and of course she had to pay for life in London. During some of the drillings without anaesthetic, she composed music in her head to distract herself or calculated the pitch of the dentist drill and how fast it had to be revolving to get that note.  

The Royal College of Music today is officially ranked as the top music institution in the world and has been for the last two or three years. The composition department, then, under its head professor, Dr Vaughn Williams, had a mission to reinvigorate and set the standard for English music. Her compo teacher, as she called composition, R.O Morris, had previously been the head of theory and composition at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia between 1926 and 28. He was another of the lead... Oh, this was, another of the leading world institutions, and he also had a formidable reputation.  

“As I travel on the little red underground and I get near Putney Bridge and the thickening mass of houses and chimney pots and the smoke, I think, so this is London. The smell of the tube station always reminds me with a thrill that I'm in London and no longer in little Adelaide. I hope you will smell it one day. It is as fascinating as the smells of the east. I don't know how to describe it, warm, a bit salty, rampy, if that means anything.” Another quote of hers also, “I've just practised for two and three quarter hours” there, look at the way she feels after playing music. “I feel all of a flutter and sick at the excitement of playing, hot and shivery and a stone lighter. Phew, such is the effect of music.” And one for the Australians here, who's everybody, of course... “By the way, nobody here seems to know anything about the term, shout. Mrs Lack, her first landlady, looked quite scared when I said I was gonna shout her to Faust.”  

So here are her debuts and highlights. There were so many that I thought I better just put a little list of PowerPoint, dot points because this is an absolutely incredible list. I mean, for a student. So the London Philharmonic playing at the patrons fund concert number one. A patrons fund was set up, a bit like the friends at the Royal College, to promote their young artists and new students weren't actually allowed to play a public concert at the Royal College for a term so they could sort of check what the level was, and the teacher said, well, that's absurd. So she ended up doing a patrons fund concert, which meant that they had money for advertising and for critics. And her teacher said, it's gonna be advertised and we're gonna have critics there and stuff because you need to make a proper debut. But the London Philharmonic, it wasn't just the college orchestra, she wrote “a daily telegraph with a concerto advertisement on it, seeing it there on the front page, I said, I'll have two, please. Something of interest, said the man. Well, yes, there is rather. I said, may I look at the times too? Yes, I'm gonna have that too, please.” But with her characteristic modesty, she writes, “I hope you won't think at a big American boast on my part, but it is the first time my name's ever appeared in a London paper, but it doesn't mean anything, however, all that matters is the consideration I've given the writing of my concerto.”  

So there was a lot going on in London's musical life in the 1930s. She saw Elgar conducting, which was one of his last events, and she saw his tribute concert. Now, about Elgar, she's written lots of things, but here's one that I just thought I'd start with. “Down King's Way, I had such a shock. Elgar dead, newspapers. What a great loss to the musical world. A great character, a fine influence, always spoken of with admiration and respect because everyone feels he had something really genuine to say. I shall always value the privilege of having lived in England during his lifetime. And I often recall that afternoon at the Albert Hall where I saw him conduct his violin concerto for Yehudi Menuhin. He seemed so near the evening of his career. Although physically an old man, he was just embarking on his third symphony, which alas, is another unfinished.” I personally have a little alas there as well because a good friend of mine was Anthony Payne, who's now passed away as well, but he did actually finish Elgar's third symphony. So it exists now. I'd love to be able to show him that quote.  

And she shook hands with superstar pianist, Rachmaninoff. “Now, Rachmaninoff, what a marvellous concert. I secured a good seat, looking down onto the keyboard, four rows up, so I had an excellent view of his hands. The technique is colossal. He runs up octaves using three four little finger for the top line, just as you and I might play a single scale. The most brilliant playing you could hear. It glitters. Entrancing, but it has greater depth, and it's unbelievable, inconceivable speeds.” She waited for him after the concert and then “at last, he came out from the artist's room, tall, dark, and muffled, in a great coat. He said, and now goodbye. And then he started shaking hands. Anyway, we had a shake and we were just so thrilled.” It's underlined. “The papers said that the audience showed their affectionate respect and that is just what they did. It was sublime. Oh deary, I wish you could have heard Rachmaninoff's inspired playing of the Chopin B flat minor sonata. I don't think I've heard anything more striking or beautiful in the pianistic line here.” “Horowitz last night was absolutely staggering. I have enjoyed no pianist more or heard one more wonderful.” Even Rachmaninoff goes down a peg.  

She heard Stravinsky, Piatagorsky, Schnabel, live, world premieres by Vaughn Williams, Delius, Sibelius and Walton. “Yesterday I heard the great Yehudi Menuhin again. He's improved. There was something....” It's true. “There was something more robust about his playing. He's got the most gorgeous tone you can imagine. It was a real Chrysler quality. The , the main thread of polyphony went on like a lovely voice among the network. It was too wonderful for words, I shall never forget.” Then they went outside. “We found crowds swarming around the Albert Hall and dozens of policemen. The fascists are having a meeting after Menuhin's concert,” with three exclamation marks. “So not only the muses have a claim to that hall.” It was the 1930s. There's a few interesting political things that come in here.  

Anyway, she kept a letter from Sir Henry Wood. Many people tried to get Miriam a prom, but it never quite happened, but she did get a reply. In her documents are a personally signed letter from Sir Henry Wood saying, “I am deeply sorry I cannot arrange any performances for you this season, but I'm snowed under with new works.”  

So there's the Albert Hall. It's my photo, that's where I used to work. And in there, when she first went in, this is what she said. “I beheld the interior of the Albert Hall for the first time. It's vastness, it's height from the ground, it's 10,000 seats.” I think it might be 7,000. I think she might have annotated that in the side as well in pencil. “It was like being in another little planet on our own. The dear old white haired composer, which was Elgar, patted the sweet fair-haired boy, Menuhin, like a lovable grandpapa. I got a lump in my throat and I wondered if Elgar longed again for his youth.” The Elgar tribute concert was after when I sang Elgar dead, really sad, in that year, three incredible composers, English composers, died, Delius, Elgar and Holst, and she was there for the concert in the Albert Hall that was for that. “This tribute concert was conducted by Dr. Sargent. He and Bertram stand out here. From all I've heard, it was such a pleasure to hear him entering wholeheartedly into this beloved work.” Elgar, the music makers. “Well, Holst's Planets, I like it. And I'm sure that Holst is a name that will not fade quickly. There is something inevitable about the culmination of his ideas. I don't mean you can anticipate what's coming, he's too original for that, but at the end you feel convinced that Delius was very Delius, luscious and swimming, but it went to my head as usual.”  

So there's the Albert Hall and right opposite it is the Royal College of Music. And Miriam wrote, “I walked up the Albert Hall steps and I glanced back to the college. Imagine it dark with a black sky behind. Now, imagine it with all its windows lit up looking rather yellowish through the small squares of glass with two street lamps on the tall standards in front of the entrance. I had never caught this site before. It was a lovely site through the slightly misty evening atmosphere.” So that's the Royal College. And as well as the Albert Hall, she went to concerts at the Queen's Hall, which was sadly bombed in World War Two. So I've never seen the Queens Hall and I wish I had.  

Here's an example of Miriam's exceptional oral ability. She went to the premier of Delius Idyll. Very complicated orchestral piece, and she was able to write home and write down the exact notes, the exact chords, and saying things like, “this is one example of how he avoids the obvious. Instead of saying, duh, duh, duh, in the chords, he says this” and she writes it exactly. She then writes underneath, in bass clef, the beginning of Stravinsky's Firebird, the most magical piece. And then writes the chords down under it as well. I don't know if she'd ever heard that before. And you can see at the end of that slide there she says, “Rimsky-Korsakov's Spanish Caprice, didn't like”.  

So soon, Miriam was discovered by the London Musical Club. And again, it was connected to the Royal College and it was designed to promote their new students. And there was this couple called the Smirnoffs. I've been Googling them, but I can't quite find out who the Smirnoffs were. But he seemed to fancy himself as an agent and I'm sure he was very well connected. But they kept inviting Miriam around to their house and she said, “we talked politics, it being fortunate this is a free country, and I listened, not having any of my own theories about Hitler. I was asked some intelligent and interesting questions, not have you ever tried to put Piccadilly Circus into your Sonata or stupid things like that.”  

And there she's looking very cool on her way to one of those things. That's outside the Royal College. You can just see in the back of the photo, the same, as we saw in the video, the same veranda that the Royal College has always had at the front of it.  

She had really intense experiences in these musical things and she tried to draw this one. I love the expressions. I don't know if you can see them well enough, but she could be a cartoonist, they were brilliant. But the point was that it was a really intense concert. The Frank Sonata, I know how she means. “I have just heard Backhaus and Ehman. It was as good as any musical feast I have ever nibbled the crumbs of. It was just too lovely. And it left me wobbly in the voice, tingling all over, short of breath, and in such a state of half consciousness. If the surroundings were weep-able, I would've arrived home with a wet hanky. Their programme choice was Frank Sonata in A, Brahms D minor, Beethoven Kreutzer, all of which I liked more than ever. Backhaus was just superb, and Ehman sounds as if he loves playing. His purpose, temperament and his trills.” Here she goes into a drawing about what the trills looked like. “It just sounded as if they were playing for their own enjoyment and not just because they had to play certain things at a certain time for a certain amount of money.” She often repeats that music has to mean something, it has to be genuinely felt and it has to say something to have this trance-like effect on her. I totally agree.  

Yes, synesthesia. Well, how do I know that Miriam had synesthesia? Well, she wrote about it in several ways. I mean, her daughter has given me a list of all the keys and the colours and the feelings that she had for each key. But this piece here is the biggest giveaway, of course. “Three tonalities predominate.” Okay. So what actually happened was, Gwen Adamson was a young student who gave Miriam a gift in the colours of blue, white and gold. I think it was a letter written on blue paper and then there was some white and gold serviettes that she'd written, but those three colours kind of set her off. So she used the harmonic associations that they gave her to create a unique composition. If you google Miriam Hyde synesthesia, you'll see a picture coloured analysis of this composition done in Miriam's own colours by Chelsea Hudson, alongside some other articles with musicians with synesthesia. And Miriam would probably not have responded to the word synesthesia or chromesthesia, actually, because there's lots of different types. And synesthesia is the umbrella term that means all of them. Some people do maths in colour and things, but when I'm saying chromesthesia, I'm talking about specific listening to music and hearing... Sorry, yes, hearing music and seeing colour. But there's lots of different long, complicated names, but they all come under the umbrella term of synesthesia, which is the opposite of anaesthesia.  

So there are lots of types and people don't talk about synesthesia very much because it's quite personal and it's also quite irrelevant to everybody else. So this research I'm going to quote today is pretty new and it's stuff I was just looking up for my own interest anyway. It's quite difficult for people to talk about it because it can be very emotional. And I made a conscious decision to find more types of work that increased my synesthesia as the loud orchestral life with tinnitus will have the opposite effect. A crowding in the mind of a constant shrieking, like that famous painting, just because you can see the tinnitus. But I don't believe that Miriam would've stood up there and shouted, I have synesthesia, although she constantly demonstrates it, but she did know.  

So synesthetes use a lot more words to describe their colours than do non-synesthetes. I was quite pleased to see that 495 compared to 58 statistic because it sort of explains why we try and explain things so exactly and we use lots and lots of adjectives and go, yes, but it's like a sort of misty, sparkly kind of move, you know? And then suddenly your sentence is an hour long. But anyway, these are very interesting quotes that have come out of a book from the leading researcher on synesthesia at the moment. His name is Richard Cytowic. I think that's how you pronounce it. And being loaded with affect was something that really captured for me that feeling about the emotions that are involved. The emotions in synesthesia are invariably strong, overload is a problem for me. So this is when he's been interviewing people and it's quite interesting. And you see at the bottom he talks about sensory confusion. Too intense, this can happen. Miriam says, “dearie, I'm quite sure that we hear more than or differently from other people.” In oral, she's talking about how people had come over to her and going, you've got that cord right, you've got that cord right, that's amazing. Well, she says, “I don't imagine that I hear wrong notes. It is just as plain to us to hear one wrong note in a chord as to see one lily in a field of red geraniums.” I think she meant one white lily. And here's somebody else, because there's lots of online forums talking about it. It's not a very regulated kind of field for... There's not many spaces for people to share their experiences. But this one I thought was really beautiful because “it can take you into a zone of happy giddiness that some people never know about, elation. Sometimes it's so wonderful that I feel sure it's heaven on earth, a state of euphoria with the raindrops on every leaf, every brick on the chimney pot, my breath catches in my throat and I can taste and smell the whole scene.”  

So if you keep that lady's thing in mind, here's another bit of Miriam out of the letters. “There were lovely splashes of yellow here and there. Below the polyphony of branches, there was a basso ostinato of bracken. The colouring of which was simply exquisite and ranged from delicate, transparent greens to bronze and copper.” Yeah, she takes in everything about all the scenes and you should see her drawings in the archives, they are just spectacular. And again, one I shall never forget, lots of people have researched, the people who have researched synesthesia, they've all found out that it helps with memory because it's like another memory trigger, and she's saying there one that I'll never forget. Well, she's got all these different aspects leading to the fact that she plays from memory all the time. It all goes on up here.  

And there's one of her actual photographs. So Christine Edwards gave me those photographs. And again, she's experiencing all those deciduous trees. I can't remember exactly where that was taken. I think it's in London. And there she is with her camera. Amazing, isn't it? While you're taking in that slide, I'm just gonna read one other bit of research on the synesthete, because I think it's really important. By a lady called Valentine Corley. “Synesthetes learn better in the mode of their synesthesia. Synesthetes are then consequently more precocious in the areas related to their synesthesia, and future career choices tend to be in the areas of their synesthetic precocity. And no two synesthetes will ever perceive the same thing in response to the same stimulus, even if they're both the same type of synesthete. And the synesthetic experience of the world is more intense than that of non-synesthetes. It is to this intensity that I wish to draw your attention. If a synesthete has musical synesthesia, they will, I contend, hear music and appreciate it in a unique way. No one else will perceive music quite as they do. The sensory phenomena evoked by music in their minds are more unique than any fingerprint, thus their synesthesia amounts to a natural originality in the mode of their perception. Therefore, they're very likely to naturally be able to make a contribution that is unlike anyone else's contribution. They will have an natural originality because they naturally perceive music in a manner different to everybody else. And in time they can embody their unique understanding in the music, whether they become a performer or a composer.” Muriel Gmeiner's astonishing music education from her children really paid off there. Oh, and the last quote, sorry, I should say, “synesthesia occupies a unique position of being the only neurodevelopmental condition linked to a pervasive enhancement of long-term memory.” And I can recommend a book called “Wednesday's Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia”, that's quite an interesting book.  

So here she's on holiday in Devon, but she's on holiday with an extreme religious group. They were called the Oxford Group and they were trying to get people together to lead a less materialistic life and to become a bit of a cult, really. It's where people were supposed to get rid of their possessions and confess their sins in public. And this was starting to make Miriam very stressed and anxious. And there she is, taking photos in Devon, but not able to capture the actual colouring, but it's still beautiful, isn't it?  

So anyway, this is when she had her nervous collapse and she ended up in a hospital and there's a massive gap in the letters and she annotates over the top of it, “I'm quite glad not to have to remember this.” There's just one more quote that might explain a little bit about the nervous collapse from Julia Simner, who runs MULTISENSE lab in the UK. She's a very interesting researcher. She says, “in terms of wellbeing, we find that people with these sensory differences, even synesthesia that's a gift, can have impairments in their wellbeing. For example, we found that people with verified synesthesia are significantly more likely to experience anxiety disorder than other people. And we were really surprised about this.”  

So then she had her nervous collapse. And just before it, just before she went on holiday, it was the end of term. And there's her beautiful Royal College of Music, and she was writing things like, “I don't know when I've ever felt more consumed by composition than I do now”, and “I don't intend to go to anybody else, I say no to each one” is because her favourite teacher, R.O Morris, was beginning to say, “maybe you should go to somebody else”. And she said, “what mournful things last lessons are, I can hardly face anyone and to catch hold of my hand and say, happy Easter just makes it worse.” When she started to recover and started writing letters again, she says, “I'd simply worn out my own little self. I had used up a great deal of myself in different ways, and perhaps that does count for something. I was beside myself with worry and I'm sure the noise of this age does as much as anything to make people batty, especially musical people who are more affected by sounds of all kinds.” That's also one of her photos at the time. I've spent a lot of time there, but I've never seen a horse and cart just there. Isn't that beautiful?  

So around this time she writes in her letters to her mother, “R.O doesn't think I need much more teaching, but I need to hear more. But honestly, after I've spent a whole day practising and writing mentally, it is much more pleasant to avoid any more sound, however beautiful or enlightening. It's just like being at an exhibition. If I'm at a college for a few hours, the whole place teams with noise. As you ride along in a bus, you see, you hear wireless pouring out from various shops. As you walk down a road, you hear more tin stuff oozing out. Who wants still more at the end of the day? No, sweep it all away. Muse around a quiet fireside, or if it's in summer, walk over quiet paths where the grass smells sweet and the twilight still flickers and the stars are coming out. To have believed I could have had too much music, but what I need is time to think.”  

So the combination of losing R.O Morris and the influence of the Oxford group of idealistic religious zealots with whom she went to Devon was just simply too much. And she said, “I'm just frightfully sensitive. And just because I've looked calm, nobody expected that I should be affected by anything.”  

But with characteristic pragmatism, Miriam picks herself up, about a month later, and her mother comes over. She looked forward to seeing her mother. She returned to London together and they spent some happy times together, taking it easy, and they visited R.O Morris together. All the visits during Muriel's trip seemed to have been very pleasant and she played second piano for a concerto lesson in which Miriam really enjoyed. And R.O remarked that they looked like sisters. And by the time Muriel went back, Miriam was recovered and she'd learnt to take it a lot easier.  

So the most important relationship for me that stood out in these letters so far is between Miriam and her first composition teacher, R.O Morris. I could just write a whole book just on this bit, to go alongside the whole book on Miriam's musical reviews of amazing concerts. But for most English musicians, even up to today, R.O Morris is one of those names synonymous with textbooks, harmony and counterpoint, contrapuntal technique in the 16th century. Many of those books are still in use today. Married to a cousin of Virginia Woolf, who was 18 years older than he was, Emeline Fisher, whose sister was Adeline Vaughn Williams, he was actually brother-in-law to Vaughn Williams, his own head of department, and I definitely don't think Miriam knew that. Both of them were famous professors of composition, and Miriam had asked for Vaughn Williams to be her professor originally. He was teaching Peggy Glenville Hicks, and he had a reputation for female pupils and progressive ideas, but she was allocated to a much preferred R.O Morris.  

He also taught Gerald Finsley, Sir Michael Tippett, Howard Ferguson, Constant Lambert, Ruth Gibson, Edmund Rubbra. Howard Ferguson described him as “impersonal, cool, rather than over enthusiastic. Never discouraging, but extremely quiet and withdrawn. The most exciting thing he ever said to me, in a rather bored, tired voice, was one day after I showed him something, after I'd been with him for several years, he said, yes, Howard, I like that. And this was such a terrific moment, I felt the heavens had opened.”  

But because Miriam's memory was so exact and her enthusiasm for compo lessons was so strong, we have entire dialogues between the two of them. And they seemed to get on famously. They talk about philosophy and the future of music. There was no tired voice in these dialogues. The relationship between Miriam Hyde and R.O Morris was a meeting of minds. She was clever and diligent. “Dr. Kitson surprised me greatly by asking if I found Mr. Morris good tempered, which suggested to me that he has a reputation to the contrary. So I said, yes, I do, but isn't he always? He said, by no means. And yet, one of the first impressions that Mr. Morris gave me was that he was a good tempered, dear old, not old thing, and he has continued to do so. It got to today. Mr. Morris must have the Christmas spirit or perhaps he remembered that I called him a friend to the Australians and he thought he better act as such. Oh, I do like his blue eyes. They're the sort that can look rather hard at you, but that you can look back for half an hour without crumpling under their gaze.” I think she made him laugh when nobody else did.  

A survivor of World War One, he had been at the Somme. R.O Morris was also a composer himself, of course, but he mysteriously gave it up in 1932, the year Miriam arrived. Some other commentators have speculated that he lost interest and there's a reputation that he was little interested in things. But dear old, not old R.O, as she affectionately called him, was most interested in Miriam's work and he became very involved in the production of it.  

Despite pressure to go to Vaughan Williams, outside pressure, he was simply unavailable when she arrived. Miriam didn't want to change once she got to London, and it seems from these quotes that R.O agreed with her. She was simply allocated to R.O and they hit it off immediately. I love the quote, “I am not gonna have anyone un-Miriam-ising me.” With a dedication to folk song and British stylistic revival, Vaughan Williams was part of judging the Royal College's prize, which was begun by wealthy businessmen and amateur violinist,[unclear] , a long time ago, to create a through composed chamber work on a renaissance model. There was money in it, so everyone did a fantasy every year. Disagreeing on the spelling, sometimes F, sometimes PH, and in the case of this piece, sometimes both are crossed out. Miriam wrote her first offering in six days and she had to wait until after the Christmas holidays to show it to R.O, where his corrections were incorporated on the same day, to arrive at the music you're going to hear. “Last night I started a fantasy trio.” I'm gonna read you her whole diary entries about it because there's not many. “Last night I started a fantasy trio, ninth of December, 1932. It's a one movement affair. Chamber music is beginning to attract me. The writing of it, I mean.” 14th of December, 1932, “I went ahead with my new trio. It leads straight into a cantabile section in B Major. I've had one of those spasms of quick writing and I believe in striking while the iron is hot. Here's how the new part goes.” And she then writes it into the letter. 15th of December, 1932, “I finished my fantasy trio, until Mr. Morris sees it. I wish he were available now so I could make any necessary alterations straight away.” 8th of January, 1933, “I showed Mr. Morris my fantasy trio today. He said I'd got hold of a good theme, gave the cello a rest an hour, and then instead of making it double the piano when I couldn't think of anything better to write.” And in the same letter she got an A plus for her Christmas composition report. 8th of January, “my fantasy trio,” so the same day, just later on, she'd leave the letters open and keep coming back and writing them, “my fantasy trio is completed and it's very much the better,” which suggests she went back up to his room and took it back to him. “We then discuss the bowing of my fantasy trio. It's all very playable, which is a wonder because I've never played a string instrument.”  

And that's the score. This score was copied out several times, in fact, in Miriam's beautiful hand, she was constantly writing out music through her life before computers and finale and typesetting music schools. This era of her schools in this fountain pen were described by several of her teachers as works of art.  

So she prepared for the concert and she was gonna play. Oh, so there was a concert offered to her by the London Musical Club. Should have said that, sorry. And she was gonna play the piano part herself. So this is two years after she'd written it. And she had a lesson with Benjy with his characteristic resourcefulness. He put in the cello and the violin parts. This is Arthur Benjamin, her next piano teacher. “We got beautifully tangled up crossing over for it.” So she's in the middle playing the piano and he's playing the right hand of the piano part and the left hand of the cello part, like this. “It reminded me of that ingenious exercise designed to embrace the pupil. Benjy liked it. He thought it was very attractive to listen to, which seems to me to be one of the essentials of a composition. And then R.O came up to hear our trio rehearsal this afternoon and he seemed awfully pleased with it. It sounded much better than he'd imagined and so did I. The only alterations were to put two bars of cello and octive higher because it sounded a bit wuzzy on its lowest string. And I played all the piano part from memory while he followed the score.” I'll have to put it up for etiquette, I suppose. So now, my trio is going to play this piece.  

My trio, Tarrawatta Trio consists of another Elder overseas scholar to the Royal College of Music, Michael . Myself, an associate of the Royal Academy of Music, and Thomas Marlin, a graduate of the Guild Hall School of Music. We had three London colleges in common and we all lived in Adelaide. It was my idea to try this fancy trio because it's originally written for the violin, true, but it seemed to me as if oboe and cello, from her letters, were her favourite instruments. And also, it's not played very much, and it's very hard to find good repertoire for oboe. Oboe chamber music is often limited to the wind quintet, which is terrible for young oboists. So perhaps this piece could have a new future revival in this form as well as its original piano trio with violin. And I don't think she'd mind. Miriam was very pragmatic.  

Helen's father was the person who invited Miriam to work for the AMEB when she returned to Australia. Edgar Bainton, the head of the Sydney Conservatorium and his daughter, Helen, who was studying in London at the same time, great friend of hers, became a member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for 40 years and she had her own group, the Trio, which was violin, viola and piano. And Helen was also daughter Christine's godmother. The Fantasy Trio, as Miriam described it “is a one movement affair”. And I'm gonna start about a third of the way through. Perhaps this quotation from Miriam might be helpful as a program note. “If the present age is predominantly materialistic, abounding in awesome technological development and international strife, and if you can refute this, I like to feel that my music or music and my music in particular, can be a refuge for what beauty and peace may still be omnipresent. In other words, I make no apologies for writing from the heart with such craftsmanship as I have acquired through earnest study.”  

[video recording of oboe, cello and piano performance] 

Cleia Craig: So this lovely poem describes how Miriam felt when she was later on recording her own piano concerti. And also, I think it also shows that she did like the oboe and the cello and the piano as well. It kind of encapsulates, there's lots of amazing poetry, but this sort of encapsulates what it feels like to play something really incredible. “Possessed, engulfed, ecstasy, agony.” She was really feeling it, wasn't she?  

Almost finished. “I may embark on a series of children's pieces.” That's something she says in London before she goes back. So the rest is kind of history because she's written the music for young pianists all over Australia. And there's a picture of her there with her great friend, Mary Evers, who really looked after her while she was in London. And the rest, as they say, is history.  

Miriam with her children. And in the middle there is Christine Edwards, her daughter. And I'd like to dedicate this talk to Christine. Many thanks to Christine Edwards, Michael Ierace, Thomas Marlin, Anne Keats who's the publisher at WIRRAPANG, to the Digital Concert Hall, to Chamber Music Adelaide and Chamber Music Adelaide for organising that concert. The pianist we heard at the beginning, Antonio Oyarzabal. I got lots of advice from Lee Amoroso at the University of Adelaide as well before I came here. And big thanks to the Friends of the National Library and the fellowships team. It's a real honour to be given the chance for somebody who's not an academic, to actually delve into reading real history. Really fantastic. Thank you so much. 

Catherine Anderson: And I think we really must thank Celia because that was, I thought thrilling. That was a great talk. Just to get into the life of this young Miriam and you just brought it to life in such a vivid and exciting way. And clearly Miriam just was at a... That period in London musically was amazing. 

Celia Craig: Amazing.   

Catherine Anderson: It was extraordinary. Extraordinary. I was just going, wow, I've heard of all those names. That's so thrilling. So it was just very exciting. Well, people have wondered... And also just to hear the music at the end, that was a joy too. 

Celia Craig: Oh, thank you. 

Catherine Anderson: Beautiful music, beautiful. 

Celia Craig: It was gorgeous, wasn't it?   

Catherine Anderson: It was. 

Celia Craig: I love that piece. 

Catherine Anderson: And there are some microphones. We are getting a bit close to time but if there's anyone with a... Oh, there's one over there and there's one... Oh, there's multiple questions. I'm not surprised. 

Celia Craig: It's so exciting. 

Audience member 1: Thank you very much for that. It was so entertaining. 

Celia Craig: You're welcome.  

Audience member 1: Listen, the chief conductor for the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Jessica has synesthesia. 

Celia Craig: Absolutely, she does, yes. 

Audience member 1: Yes. Look, just a question, it may be a very quick answer, did you come across anything with Miriam's connection to the other great Australian composer, Dulcie Holland? 

Celia Craig: Ah, well, actually, Dulcie, I was looking for Dulcie Holland because all the way through she's talking about Peggy Glanville-Hicks and Esther Rofe all the time, and I had to kind of keep the talk focused because there was so much to write, but I haven't yet found anything about Dulcie Holland, even though I know that there is a lot. But there are lots more papers. I really just scratched the surface. Thank you for your question. 

Audience member 2: Thank you so much for that talk. And just really a question about where can we read more or are you going to launch into that book or will you come back and give another 25 talks, please?   

Celia Craig: I would absolutely love to, honestly. Just to literally go back to the letters and to take a subject and then just print what she's written. But of course it all goes this week I did this, and then there's another subject, another one. So if you just take, for example, the relationship between her and the other female students at the Royal College, I mean, that would just make a fantastic book. So there's a lot to do. And where we can read about... You can read things about her. I went over to the National Film and Sound Archive this morning because they have an oral history about her, but most of the things I Google beforehand are pictures of her looking really old, and to be honest, I wouldn't want a sort of an 85-year-old photo of me to be the only thing that's available on the internet. I think that's a bit unfair. So I would like to publish a bit more. I'm not sure how. Thank you. 

Audience member 2: Good, well that's a relief. 

Celia Craig: I think it's an SBS or something. I think that's what it should be. 

Audience member 3: Thanks, Celia. Great to hear the end result high of what I know has been such a long journey for you on this particular theme. I'm interested now that you complete this and go back to Adelaide, what will you be taking to Adelaide from this intensive research period and how do you expect Adelaide to be embracing Miriam in light of this?  

Celia Craig: Oh, what an excellent question. Well, I mean really, what I'd like to do, is to put together a live concert programme that puts Miriam in context of that time, because Arthur Benjamin also wrote some good pieces and things like that, so that's a concert program.  

But I think what seems to me to be the kind of the most obvious thing to do is to make a little documentary about her, reading the letters, they become a kind of a screenplay. And because of the synesthetic kind of excitement that she shows and that I feel as well, you don't want to just leave it to one medium, like a book or even just like a concert, you want to experience things, that's why I put coloured lights and some music on here as well. So I've got ideas about what I'd like to do in Adelaide, but I don't know, it'll depend on grant funding, really, won't it? I'll have to get planning. But thank you for your question, brilliant.   

Audience Member 3: I don't want to hog the floor, but Robin Holmes, lovely, oh, that was so brilliant. I have to say that I'm especially in awe of your talk because I was the one that found those papers under the bed, that box. 

Celia Craig: That's fantastic. 

Audience Member 3: That wonderful brown case, which I have to say is so beautiful because we kept the letters in the case-- 

Celia Craig: That's why I wanted that picture because it's so evocative. 

Audience member 3: It's just awe inspiring, isn't it?  

Celia Craig: Oh, fantastic. 

Audience member 3: But the image I just wanted to sort of pose was this... That's essentially a student piece we heard, so you can hear the level of expertise that she already had acquired. And the saddest part for me is that the image people had of her in Australia in all the later years, the sort of domestic, the sort of what they were described as the sort of by the new generation of the so-called modern contemporary composers of the 60s and the 70s and so on was that there was sort of those women were somewhat discarded from the public view, and in, I think it was 1995, we ran a conference over at ANU where we invited octogenarians to join us of her generation, and Miriam came and we had a wonderful conference about the role and the contributions they'd made, and there was a paper about Miriam and her contribution to AMEB music and so on. But what was really important was that we ran a little festival of music alongside it and we played all this chamber music that she'd written and continued to write, and she had never heard it played before. And I think what an indictment. 

Celia Craig: Absolutely. 

Audience member 3: That we had this extraordinary woman, of such brilliance and as you say, poetry, colour, music, brains, that's just phenomenal. And for a long time she was so undervalued. Valued within a sphere, the AMEB children training sphere, but not valued as what she truly was, which was a great professional artist, composer, performer. 

Celia Craig: I mean, the performances that she gave in London and the things I'm reading from her teachers, she's playing at the absolute top level and she hasn't finished. Like she got this trajectory and then it was like, oh, well, you better teach in a girls' school in Sydney. And apparently it happened to others as well, but I'm really struck by how people were absolutely coming to her in London and saying, you must play at the Proms and things like that. And then she came back to Australia. I'm not sure any of it happened. And I found that really, really sad.   

Audience member 3: Yeah. I find it a really poignant story that you gave us, because it's so exhilarating and I just really encourage you to, as much as you can, just to tell that story again and again, and play as much of... Get people to play the music because it's fabulous music, and I think we're at a stage where we can accept and listen to this music in the context of where she came from. 

Celia Craig: And it makes me a little bit upset, really, when I think how highly I've... Highly is one word, yes, and intensively I've been trained at music schools right from tiny age and in the profession and working and all these orchestras and everything, and yet we play the same music over and over again and there's all this really good music out there that's not getting played and it's not box ticking or whatever, it's just... I mean, for me, I get bored and if I don't play new music, I don't get new synesthesia, so it's boring, so it's a perfect excuse to keep playing Miriam Hyde and other music. 

Audience member 3: Anyway, congratulations and thank you so much. Thank you. That's great. 

Catherine Anderson: Well, we might... Just before we finish up, I just would like to invite Luke Hickey, who's in the front here, who's the Assistant Director of Engagement, just to say a few words.   

Luke Hickey:Thanks, Catherine, and thanks Celia for sharing your research with us this evening. We love seeing the work that our fellows do and bringing those to life in those presentations, I think you did a wonderful job in bringing Miriam's story to life. I know you were a little bit nervous about it earlier, but you did a wonderful job on both her personal and her professional life as well and giving us an insight into that. Thank you to our guest for finding the papers. That's pretty amazing to have you here as well and helping them find their way here, but I think really interesting that Miriam's note there about these papers perhaps being of interest to a researcher in the future and they've found their way to you, so I think that's wonderful. Have been fellows talks that have turned into publications and presentations and all sorts of things, so we look forward to seeing what comes next.  

We would like to also end this evening with a special thank you to the Friends of the National Library of Australia who not only generously supported Celia's fellowship, but have also supported our Creative Arts Fellowship since 2015. You may not be aware that the Friends of the National Library are platinum patrons of the Library. What does that mean? That means that they've donated over $300,000 to the work of the Library. Over the years, the friends have made not only substantial financial contributions to a number of activities, including our treasures gallery upstairs and the digitization of the Canberra Times newspaper, but for many years now they have also supported two fellowships, the Creative Arts Fellowship that we've heard tonight, and also a staff travelling fellowship. Our Creative Arts Fellowship has allowed creative practitioners, as you said, Celia, not researchers, but people who are deeply connected to the subject and allowed the gift of time with our rich collections as a source of inspiration. This year marks 10 years of support for the Creative Arts Fellowship. And in fact, the Friend's willingness to support the fellowship has enabled the Library to offer a creative fellowship program to musicians, composers, playwrights, choreographers, visual artists, and even a cartoonist, to have time to explore and be inspired by the Library's collections. The friends have now decided to support the library in different ways and Celia's amazing presentation tonight is the last of the Friends funded creative fellowships, but not our last creative fellowship. We're enormously grateful to the friends of the Library for their generous support, the support that extends beyond the philanthropic gifts, but also to include the many activities and events that they offer to members and to engage them with the Library's collection and with the community. Thank you to our co-chairs, Catherine and Michelina who couldn't be here tonight, the dedicated committee and subcommittee members both past and present of the Friends, and on behalf of the director general of the library, Marie-Louise Ayres, who wasn't able to be here tonight, would like you to please join me in thanking the Friends for their generous support. Thanks. 

Catherine Anderson: Well, we'll finish up now and I'd particularly like to thank Luke for those really kind words. I mean, I've got so much out of being a Friend, so it's a great organisation to be a part of, particularly when there's so much to support with the Library. And just a few little plugs before we go. The next event that Friends can attend is tomorrow evening, which is the opening of the Library's new exhibition called Hopes and Fears: Australian Migration Stories. So there's details about that on the Library's website, but if you're not a Friend and you would like to come tomorrow night, please, go onto the website and join up and I'm sure we'll get you there. You might also like to attend the next fellowship lecture, which is called Harold S. Williams in Japan, and this will be delivered by Dr Robin Gerster at 12:30 PM on Thursday the 1st of August. So that's in a couple of weeks, just under a couple of weeks. And on the Library's website you can also find lots of recordings about many interesting diverse talks and performances from the Library fellows, so that everything's available even after today. And you can also see them... The Library also has a YouTube channel, so in all the platforms. So just to finally finish, thank you all for coming out here and attending. These events just are made by the people. It's part of the conversation. And just again, please, join me once again in thanking and congratulating Celia on just a fascinating presentation. It was just great. I think we've all got so much out of it.