Noel Mewton-Wood

Noel Mewton-Wood (20 November 1922 – 5 December 1953) was an Australian-born concert pianist who achieved international fame on the basis of many distinguished concerto recordings during his short life.

Born in Melbourne, he studied with Waldemar Seidel at the Melbourne Conservatorium until the age of fourteen. After further study at London's Royal Academy of Music, he took private lessons from Artur Schnabel in Italy.

In March 1940, he returned to London for his debut performance at Queen's Hall, performing Beethoven's third piano concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham. He then went on tour in the UK as assisting artist accompanying Viennese tenor Richard Tauber, and later performed in France, Germany, South Africa, Poland, Turkey and Australia.

Mewton-Wood's The Times obituary of 7 December 1953 described his debut performance:

Mewton-Wood was a close friend of Benjamin Britten. In 1952-53, while Britten was busy composing his opera Gloriana, he deputized Mewton-Wood to accompany tenor Peter Pears, his partner.

When only 31, Mewton-Wood committed suicide by drinking prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide), apparently blaming himself for the death from a ruptured appendix of William Fedrick, whom he lived with, feeling he had overlooked the early symptoms. The notes written by a friend of Mewton-Wood, John Amis, for the reissue of the Bliss Concerto recording, confirm that Mewton-Wood was gay and was distraught at his lover's tragic death.

Benjamin Britten wrote Canticle III: Still falls the rain for a concert in Mewton-Wood's memory.

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