Dame Fanny Waterman obituary

Virtually synonymous with the Leeds International Piano Competition, which she co-founded in 1961, Dame Fanny Waterman, who has died aged 100, was a music teacher who became one of the most prominent personalities in the musical world.

“I dreamed it up one night,” she said of “the Leeds”, as it became known universally, “and I was so excited that I woke up my husband.” Unlike Waterman, who was born in Leeds, her husband, Geoffrey de Keyser, a doctor, was a Londoner and his reaction was: “It won’t work in Leeds, it has to be in a capital city.” She stuck to her guns, however, and launched the triennial competition in her own city, raising funds from individuals, banks, local businesses and the Leeds Corporation. Her husband provided support, both moral and practical, as did her friend and fellow co-founder, the pianist Marion Thorpe – then Marion Harewood, wife of the Earl of Harewood and later wife of the Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe.

Somewhat embarrassingly, it was one of her own pupils, Michael Roll, who won the first competition, one of only two Britons ever to do so, but, despite the controversy, the event gradually grew from what she herself described as a “cottage industry” into one of the most important of its type in the world. There are now five main prizes offered, ranging from £25,000 down to £5,000, and six prizes of £2,000 each for semi-finalists.

The winner was offered engagements round the United Kingdom, from concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hallé to a date with the Chipping Campden music festival. An equally hectic international schedule (more than 20 dates) also took the winner to Hong Kong, Australia, the US and several European venues.

Waterman passed on her experience as a teacher to a global audience with a series of instruction manuals entitled Me and My Piano, conceived in association with Thorpe. Approximately 30 volumes were published, clocking up sales of more than 2m. The series became established as the most popular piano method in China.

At the age of 89 she took on the presidency of the Harrogate international festival, determined to make her mark on it. As she said at the time: “I intend to return [it] to the glory days. I’ve already called Bryn Terfel and Alan Bennett.”

In 2015 she stood down as chair and artistic director of the Leeds, and wrote her autobiography, My Life in Music, telling the story of her rise from humble beginnings to doyenne of the piano competition world. The vicissitudes of the latter were also discussed with Wendy Thompson in their book Piano Competition: The Story of the Leeds (1990).

She was born in Leeds, to Mary (nee Behrmann) and Myer Waterman (formerly Wasserman). Her father was a Russian Jew who came to Britain to work as a jeweller and to whose industry she was later to attribute her own work ethic. At Allerton high school Fanny played for morning assembly, her parents having scraped together the money for piano lessons, and went on to study with the pianist Cyril Smith at the Royal College of Music. She performed with the Leeds Symphony Society in 1941 and at a Henry Wood Promenade Concert in 1942 in the Bach Concerto for Three Keyboards in C major, BWV 1064, under Sir Adrian Boult.

Called up for second world war work, she eagerly grasped the option to teach. After the birth of her first son in 1950, she gave up her concert career and continued to teach, but it was the Leeds competition that was to become the defining undertaking of her life. While confident of her own achievement – “It’s now the greatest piano competition in the world. I put Leeds on the map,” she once said – she was not slow to give credit to Thorpe and to the input of her husband (“my rock and inspiration: I couldn’t have done it without him”), despite his initial scepticism about the venue. De Keyser’s knowledge of music was considerable and he chose the repertoire of the Leeds competition on three occasions, also drawing up the rules – rules that became standard for music competitions worldwide.

She got to know Thorpe as the mother of one of her pupils. Other private pupils at that time and later included Allan Schiller, Paul Crossley and Benjamin Frith. Several of her students won prizes in the Leeds, Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein, Busoni, London International and Geneva competitions. Following the controversial outcome of the first competition, there was to be further trouble in 1969 when the outstanding Romanian pianist Radu Lupu was placed only fourth by the jury after the second round, thus excluding him from the final.

To her credit, Waterman recognised Lupu’s exceptional potential and insisted that the number of competitors in the final round be increased from three to five. “It was a travesty,” she said frankly. “I told the judges, look, if Radu Lupu doesn’t make the final, I’m not organising another competition. Simple as that.” Lupu went on to achieve something approaching cult status, and few would question the rightness of Waterman’s intervention. It was typical of her managerial style, however: she was resolute and plain-speaking, indeed indomitable, describing herself as the “field marshal” behind the competition.

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Serving on one of her juries was not a responsibility to undertake lightly. “My first rule is: no alcohol at mealtimes,” she said. “I’ve been on far too many judging panels where people have fallen asleep.” The judging procedure was laid down at an early stage, following her approach to the celebrated teacher Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger agreed to come on one condition, that “there would be no discussion whatsoever among the judges. Each member of the panel would simply put three names – first, second and third – into a ballot. And that is the way it has been done ever since.”

Waterman’s family background, and doubtless wartime experiences too, left her with an almost legendary frugality, which, combined with her forthright manner, could make her seem somewhat intimidating. Her views on the future of piano playing in Britain were typically incisive. The country was failing to produce performers who could compete internationally, she maintained, blaming the popularity of electric keyboards (“a waste of time”), mobile telephones distracting children from their practice, and a general lack of the rigorous discipline required to pursue a professional career at the highest level. She recalled Clifford Curzon telling her that he had once had eight lessons to perfect a single Beethoven chord.

She also believed that young British pianists had too limited a repertoire, familiar with perhaps three or four Beethoven sonatas rather than all 32. But if relatively few British pianists were winning prizes at Leeds, it is also the case that, despite strong showings from China, Russia and elsewhere, the competition has in recent decades produced few stars that have gone on to blaze in the musical firmament. With perhaps one or two exceptions one has to go back to 1990 and earlier to find players of the stature of Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida (runner-up to Dmitri Alexeev in 1975), Lars Vogt, Noriko Ogawa, Boris Berezovsky, Louis Lortie, Peter Donohoe and András Schiff among the winners. After Waterman stepped down from the Leeds, the international spread of the competition was increased under the co-artistic directors Paul Lewis and Adam Gatehouse in 2016. The latter became sole artistic director in 2019, with Perahia as patron and Lang Lang as global ambassador.

In the latter stages of her career Waterman served regularly on a number of other juries, including those of the Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Horowitz and Chopin competitions. She had little truck with objections to the idea of musical competitions: “Human beings are competitive by nature” was her crisp response, in defiance of criticism that the more idiosyncratic and poetic pianists – not least Lupu – frequently fail to thrive in competitions.

Whatever one’s view of the competition process, Waterman was unquestionably a part of the musical fabric of the nation. She was appointed OBE in 1971, advanced to CBE in 1999 and in 2005 she was made a dame. In 2006 she was awarded the freedom of the city of Leeds. She was also awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan and York and was a fellow of the Royal College of Music.

De Keyser, whom she married in 1944, died in 2001. She is survived by their two sons, Robert and Paul, and six granddaughters.