Dear Listeners and Salon Guests,

Last week, we resumed our Tall Poppies Talk Australian Salons and had the pleasure of hosting musicologist and historian Kay Dreyfus. It was an enriching evening, diving into the remarkable work of one of Australia’s leading figures in the field.

In addition to many regulars, we were joined by a former state premier and journalist Guy Degen, who attended for the first time and penned the following report.

Stay tuned for more updates from me and the Tall Poppies Project soon.

Best wishes,

Breandáin

Tall Poppies Talk with Kay Dreyfus

The curiosity and enthusiasm Kay Dreyfus has for music and the lives of the musicians she researches is immediately infectious. In conversation with the musician, journalist, and host of Tall Poppies, Breandáin O’Shea, this was a salon of two great storytellers teasing out the incredible life story of violinist Alma Moodie.

Breandáin’s two-part podcast on Alma Moodie is a must listen.

But first, this Talk Poppies Talk included a couple of firsts for this “long time listener, first time caller” of the Tall Poppies podcast. This was the first time I had attended the hugely convivial Australian Salon in Berlin (I’m hooked!), and Kay Dreyfus is the first musicologist I have ever met (she will be my musicologist benchmark forever after!). 

If you’re like me, and thought, Why haven’t I heard of Alma Moodie before?; then to hear directly from Kay about her research into Alma’s life and career, as well as the context and nuances of events during the tumultuous years of the First World War, the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, and through the eyes of Alma, was gripping. 

I’m sure I’m not the only one who after experiencing this Tall Poppies Talk will try to seek out works either Alma Moodie performed, or were composed for her by Hans Pfitzner, Ernst Kreneck and Max Reger, to name but a few.

I’ve suggested to Breandáin that, if possible, an Alma Moodie playlist would be a wonderful digital accompaniment to the podcast. I also wonder what Alma would have thought of Spotify, or indeed of a group of Australians and self-confessed lovers of Australia(ns) gathering in Berlin for an evening in the twenties of the twenty-first century to discuss her life. I’m sure she would approve of the latter. 

And I think we can say that because throughout this conversation with Kay, you had the feeling you were getting to know Alma the person better, and particularly hearing more about her through her letters. Kay’s meticulous research is matched by the empathy she expressed for the trailblazing woman and virtuosic violinist hailing from Mount Morgan in Queensland who clearly captured the admiration and respect of leading composers of the time, and in a very male dominated era.

Throughout the talk we heard excerpts of Alma’s letters from the podcasts, voiced by the journalist Barbara Gruber, who Breandáin described as “French, German and married to an Australian (me) so she has the right combination of accents”! I think hearing Alma’s thoughts through her letters struck the right chord with everyone. 

Of course the question of are there any recordings of Alma performing? was discussed at length. Kay was quite emphatic that she has searched “everywhere”, and now, she is very happy to pass on the baton to the “younger generation” of musicologists, and Moodie-curious, to continue the search.

Given how widely she travelled and performed, and how highly she was regarded by her peers in Europe, the absence of recordings of an overlooked musician adds a certain mystique to Alma Moodie. I think the whole room was nodding in agreement when the topic was raised of whether Moodie’s life story could be the subject of a film.

What we have though, in Kay’s biography of Alma Moodie, Bluebeard’s Bride, is an important body of work that, as Breandáin quite rightly noted, has helped contemporary musicians find Alma. More recently Kay edited The Fractured Self : Selected German Letters of the Australian-born Violinist Alma Moodie, 1918-1943.

A podcast with a follow-up talk is a special thing, and the versatile conversation format of Tall Poppies Talks makes for a thoroughly enjoyable evening. I have convinced the journalist with “the right combination of accents” to come along with me next time.

I can only concur with everyone I met that David and Martin are generous hosts and good chefs, (and along with a selection of Australian wines courtesy of Tim Lockwood (https://lockwood.store/), their home is the perfect setting for an enriching conversation and a welcoming little corner of Australia in Berlin.

Guy Degen 

Guy is a designer and journalist living in Berlin, and moved from Australia to Germany in 2004.