Description

“Moodie knew violin playing was culturally and spiritually significant” 

Goetz Richter, Violinist, Associate Professor, University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music

Alma Moodie was born in 1898 in Mount Morgan, a small town in rural Australia, but started her violin lessons in nearby Rockhampton. She moved to Europe early last century and eventually became a student of the legendary Carl Flesch, who referred to her as his favourite student.  The violinist collaborated with renowned composers, among them Stravinsky, Pfitzner and Reger, and cultivated friendships with aristocracy, philanthropists and artists including German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Alma Moodie’s influence and fame were far reaching, well beyond her untimely death in 1943.

In these two podcasts we meet the Australian musicologist and historian Kay Dreyfus, who published “Bluebeard’s Bride”, a biography of Alma Moodie in 2013. More recently Kay edited “The Fractured Self”,  a book featuring 270 letters from the Moodie collection. Also joining me are musicians Diana Weekes, who translated Moodie’s letters, and violinist Goetz Richter, Associate Professor at the University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music. Goetz has researched and performed many of the pieces associated with Moodie during her lifetime. Two of his recordings of Moodie inspired works also featured in the podcast. We will also meet historian Michael Haas and author of “Forbidden Music,” a study of the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich.