Nancy Weir

Nancy Mary Weir (13 July 1915 – 14 October 2008) was an Australian pianist and teacher.

Weir was born in Kew, Melbourne, on 13 July 1915. Her father was a publican who ran a small hotel in Lockhart, near Wagga Wagga, and she grew up "behind the bar". She studied piano in Melbourne with Edward Goll (a pupil of Emil von Sauer and grand-pupil of Franz Liszt) and Ada Corder (Freeman). She was renowned as a child prodigy, performing to great acclaim.

A review of her concert performance in December 1929 noted, "With all her latent power, and natural gift for artistic expression, Nancy played Schumann's Scenes from Childhood, the work in which she exhibited her rare talent at the Town Hall some time ago. The unaffected simplicity of the child's playing, coupled with a sure grasp of the expressive and pictorial possibilities of the Scenes, constituted the charm of her renditions; The audience expressed the highest pleasure in Nancy Weir's clever playing and phenomenal success."

At age 13, she performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, under the English-born conductor Fritz Hart. Following this concert, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne set up a public subscription scheme for the young Weir to study with a great teacher in Europe. On arrival in Berlin, Germany, in 1930, she studied first with Edwin Fischer, but wangled her own way to studying with the legendary Artur Schnabel who she said was more fashionable. However, the "official" story is that Schnabel heard her and agreed to take her on as a student immediately. After the Nazis came to power, Schnabel left Germany in 1933, and so did Weir.

She moved to London, where she studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Harold Craxton from 1933-1936. She herself became the subject of several legends. One of these involved her being set to learn, by Craxton, the Bach-Busoni Chaconne in D minor. She arrived for her lesson the next week and played the work from memory. Craxton and others were astonished. She later explained that, as a student in Berlin, she had a fellow pianist neighbour who played a certain work that she did not know, for several hours every day. She learned this work by musical osmosis through the walls, and it turned out to be the Chaconne, which, until Craxton gave the music to her, she had never before seen. The work became a great financial asset for her, as she could guarantee certain competition prize monies by playing it, frequently having spent the money before she luckily, and predictably, won.

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