LILI KRAUS RETURNS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 934, 5 July 1957, Page 4

LILI KRAUS RETURNS

NHERALDED, Lili Kraus popped into Auckland recently. The wellknown concert pianist had returned to this country to visit friends, give a few concerts perhaps, but chiefly to fulfil her obligations as a New Zealand citizen. For Lili Kraus, who was born in Hungary, became a naturalised New Zealander following her release from a Japanese internment camp in Java after the war. Although no concert tour was pre-arranged and most theatres were already booked, the New Zealand Federation of Chamber Music Societies quickly organised concerts for Madame Kraus in Hamilton, Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellington and in the South Island centres. In addition to the two broadcasts scheduled for the present week (July 1 and July 6) she will give three more studio recitals this month. When The Listener called on Madame Kraus at 1YA she was practising on the grand piano in the vast Studio 1. And she continued to play as the photographer arranged his equipment alongside her. She wore a black jumper and black skirt, and her long dark braided hair fell across her shoulders almost to the keyboard. Behind her a kerosene essure heater hissed and a _ solitary ight bulb lit the space. Suddenly the piano stopped. "A funny little piece, this," she said as she turned from the keyboard. The sheet music gave the composer’s name as Lorenzo Fernandez, and the title was Pirilampos. "T have been invited by the Government of Brazil to adjudicate on the jury of the first international piano competition at Rio de Janeiro, and to

give lectures on interpretation and on Mozart at the Academy there. And at my concerts the Government wants me to play some pieces of the local composers. So.. ." It is nine years since Lili Kraus was last in New Zealand. In that time she has virtually toured the world. For two years she played in the principal cities of Europe and America, then she accepted a professorship-head of the department of piano-at the University of Capetown, where she stayed for a further two years. While in South Africa Madame Kraus raised many hundreds of pounds for a Johannesburg organisation which seeks to improve race relations. A further tour of Europe and America included a long period of work in Paris and Vienna, recording the entire piano works of Mozart. Although the Mozart bicentenary was celebrated last year, it was in 1954 that Madame Kraus was first approached by Discophiles Fran¢ais and asked to accept this task. And she accepted willingly, she told us, because she had mace a special study of Mozart for 22 years. Now, after three years, Madame Kraus has recorded about three-quarters of his piano and chamber music, and last year the Mozart trios in which she collaborated won the Grand Prix de Disc. On her last wisit to New Zealand Lili Kraus was accompanied by her husband, Dr Otto Mandl, and their two children, Michael and Ruth. On this visit, however, she is alone. Her husband died last year and her children have made their home in London, where Michael is studying atomic physics at the Imperial College.