“All of me is in your hands…I just won’t let go” – Harriet Cohen
“I marvel anew at the courage which you…are showing” – Eleanor Roosevelt
We’ve all heard of history’s great love affairs: Antony and Cleopatra, Napoleon and Josephine, Burton and Taylor. However, one of the most passionate and saddest, yet hardly known was that between an English classical music composer and a Jewish pianist.
Harriet Alice Pearl Cohen was born on December 2, 1895, in Brixton, South London. She had a musical background, as her mother was a pianist. Her paternal lineage went back to Tsarist Russia, and the family’s Sephardi origins were traceable to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Being Jewish marked her as different at school, and she was excused from attending Christian assemblies, although her father’s view was that she was English first, with a Jewish religion. However, she refused to change her family name to Verney when the rest of the family did so, and her proud Jewishness was to re-emerge much later in our story in the build-up to and during WW II.
At the age of 13, she became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy of Music, where she excelled, winning awards and medals, culminating in being made an Associate of the Academy in 1916. Throughout her career, she purveyed the music of previous eras, becoming well known for her keyboard recitals of William Byrd, Henry Purcell, and J.S Bach. She also promoted the music of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, whom she met in London and who dedicated to her his Nights in the Gardens of Spain. And following a trip to Russia, some works of Shostakovich and Kabalevsky were written for her. A clutch of other composers wrote specifically for her, among them Elgar, Bartok, and Swiss composer Ernest Bloch, whose music often reflected his Jewish heritage.
However, it was the music of Arnold Bax that supplied the backdrop for the romance to spark. In March 1913, Cohen attended the Queen’s Hall for the premiere of Bax’s new symphonic work. Their eyes flashed, and he was captivated, “a small dryad face beneath a cloud of jet black hair, and a pair of bright eyes…peering at me.” Cohen was 17. Bax, who was 12 years older, was a married man with two children. No matter – Bax was haunted by her image and playfully called her Tania, a Russian fashion of the time, also referencing her Lithuanian ancestry.
Following much correspondence between them, Bax took the bold step of moving his family from Ireland to London to be closer to her. Cohen was ambivalent, teasing Bax with expressions of outward passion (“Isn’t it lovely to hold hands?”) but wary as to whether their increasing intimacy was infatuation rather than something more. A further change was occurring in that Cohen was beginning to inspire Bax’s compositional creativity in his poetry and music, becoming his lifelong muse (“If there was only you to write for, it would be enough”), while she alone seemed to possess the innate ability to intuitively interpret his work (“Most women demand children from their men – I don’t; I demand works”).
In 1914, the war seemed to fortify the intensity of their relationship, despite the fact that Bax was still living with his wife. Cohen was now fully committed to the relationship, writing: “My love is like the sea that has broken down the dykes and nothing can stop it,” while Bax was dreaming of covering her body with yellow daffodils. In June 1916, Cohen premiered two of Bax’s new works – Legend for Violin and Piano and Ballad for Violin and Piano.
The following year, Cohen’s health began to deteriorate, with high temperatures and coughs, accompanied by bouts of psychological volatility and thoughts of suicide. Bax persuaded her to take a break in Cornwall for a couple of weeks, and he joined her there in early September. They visited the 13th-century Tintagel Castle, long linked with Arthurian legend, which entranced them. Indeed, their relationship echoed the love affair between King Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, and the knight Sir Lancelot. Cohen had previously set the bait by sending Bax a postcard inscribed with the veiled invitation that “Lancelot and Guinevere spent many a day on these grassy slopes.” That inspired Bax to compose perhaps his most famous work, the tone poem “Tintagel.” The score portrays surging breakers pounding the rocky shore and flecks of sunlight glinting on the Atlantic, paving the way for the ecstatic lyricism of the gorgeous love theme. This was a musical depiction representing the pinnacle of their love affair. However, they were both tortured by the reality of Bax’s marriage and his wife’s refusal to grant a divorce, which doomed them to face the future without being together, Bax referring to it as “the dream their world denied.”
If circumstances determined that Cohen couldn’t be with Bax, then there were plenty of other suitors queuing up for her attentions. While traveling the world to perform, she attended the glamorous post-concert receptions; and when in England, she loved to throw lavish parties, mixing with the cream of society. The guest lists included authors H. G. Wells and D. H. Lawrence, press magnates Max Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere, and politicians Leslie Viscount Runciman and David Lloyd George. Some or all of these became intimate lovers; with Cohen, the line was often ambiguously drawn, all part of her shrewdly curated mystique. They were all spellbound by her charisma, having seen the publicity photographs of her in stunning film star poses and attire. In fact, Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, never at a loss for words, commented that “men have been divorced for less.” It’s been said that merely to be in her presence was a disturbingly sensual experience. Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, a gentle, jovial bear of a man not averse to stealing kisses from young musicians, was another of those who became enraptured by her charm. Cohen playfully commented to Bax: “I’ve fallen deeply in love – ahem – with uncle Vaughan Williams.” He (Williams) had agreed to a commission from Cohen in return for 10,000 kisses, the result being Hymn-Tune Prelude.
In 1933, she premiered another Williams composition, Piano Concerto in C Major, which was not well received, following which he asked her, “Do I still claim my one thousand sixty-five and a half kisses, or am I in disgrace for writing you a bad concerto?”
Indeed, Cohen was held in high regard by figures more famous than herself. Renowned Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, with whom Cohen drank champagne magnums and smoked cigars, composed his Seventh Symphony in 1924. Despite rumors of a proposed eighth symphony, his musical output remained dormant for over 30 years until his death in 1957. Cohen told the story that she once teased him by saying, “I don’t believe there is an eighth symphony,” at which point he took out a packet of cigarettes without saying a word, emptied it, opened it up, and on the cardboard scribbled some musical notes, proudly proclaiming: “This is the first chord of my Eighth Symphony.” Cohen treasured that snippet. No such symphony exists.
To appreciate the exoticism of a Harriet Cohen performance in its full theatricality, one must turn to eye witness accounts. Before the music comes the couture. The UK’s Daily Express offered details of her elegant attire: “A model gown of black lace over peach taffeta with a triple panniered fish lace skirt.” A more detailed and amusing report of her modus operandi is given in an American interview with well-known raconteur Quentin Crisp. As she entered the concert hall, he was stunned by her “beautiful Byzantine looks, dressed in a way that was extremely visible.” Then, all in her own good time, she bowed to the orchestra conductor, re-arranged her dress “that had flowed out behind her as she sat down to cover the maximum amount of stage,” removed the jewelry from her hands, and then bowed to the audience. By the time she played her first note, “It didn’t matter what note she played because the audience was totally given over to the desire that she would astound them.”
In 1929, Cohen met scientist and polymath Albert Einstein while on a concert tour in Berlin. Einstein was so impressed with her, that he invited her to tea with his wife, Elsa. During the meeting, Einstein commented, “I play the violin; we must make music together some time.” This indeed came to fruition in 1934, Einstein having fled to the United States from the increasing persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Their duet at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, with tickets selling at the huge price of $25 each, raised money to bring Jewish scientists out of Germany.
At about the same time, Cohen entered the world of Ramsay MacDonald when he was British prime minister from 1929 to 1935. His opening gambit would have instantly tickled Cohen’s playful sense of humor: Did she want to see his new gramophone? It’s not clear, even from their letters to each other, whether they were lovers, but at a time of growing antisemitism in Europe, the associations with Einstein and Ramsay MacDonald re-ignited in Cohen her concern for the Jews of Europe. Earlier In 1930, on her first American tour, she had met American journalist Dorothy Thompson, who subsequently wrote to Cohen in strong terms about the plight of Jewish refugees in Austria and Germany, made worse by the 1935 Nuremberg Laws excluding Jews from public life: “There is wholesale terror and pogroms going on…if only someone would speak: someone in a high important place who has the ears of the world.” She specifically named Ramsay MacDonald and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Cohen, of course, had the ears of the former and certainly would have passed this information directly onto MacDonald. Later on, in 1939, she performed in Washington and met president Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, at the White House. She developed a close friendship with Eleanor, their letters now archived in the British Library. Certainly, the president’s actions regarding the growing Nazi threat in Europe would have been prompted by the information flowing between Cohen and his wife. Germany had already invaded Czechoslovakia and was about to do the same to Poland.
That year, Cohen visited Palestine for the first time, embarking on a four-week tour performing in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa with the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, which provided a haven for persecuted Jewish musicians. A government official at the time remarked: “I am sure that even the walls of Jerusalem were moved by your music. Play on Tania, play on.”
On that trip, she was invited to lunch by Chaim Weizmann, later to become the first president of the State of Israel, who spoke at length on why Palestine should be the Jewish homeland. From that day on Cohen became a committed Zionist. She argued that Jewish refugees should be admitted on ships from Nazi Germany rather than being turned back, almost precipitating an international incident. She believed passionately in the establishment of a Jewish state, but with justice to the Arabs. For her pains, Arabs made two assassination attempts on her life, as a result of which a British armed escort to her concerts became necessary.
On her return to Britain, while dining at the Dorchester Hotel with Weizmann, they heard about the government White Paper, which proposed to limit Jewish immigration to Britain to just 15,000 a year. Blanche Dugdale (niece of Lord Balfour, who in 1917 had formulated the Balfour Declaration), who was dining with them at the time, agonized as to “what will happen to the millions fleeing from Hitler.” The voice of those millions, then and in the years to follow, asked: “Who will be our Moses and lead us out of here?” Cohen and Weizmann heard those heart-wrenching pleas, and the answer came in 1948 with Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
There’s a photo of Cohen and Bax, taken in 1948, which offers a flavor of the sadness that enveloped their lives. They had been lovers for some 34 years. Cohen was then 53 and Bax 65. Bax’s wife, Elsa, had died the previous year, but he had withheld telling Cohen. Then a triple blow for Cohen. She found out about Elsa’s death when her will was published, at which point Cohen felt sure that Bax would now marry her; Bax revealed his 27-year affair with Mary Gleaves (he had passionately written to Mary, “I am so infinitely grateful to have found you, my wild young maid. All my body and spirit send their kisses to you”); and he made clear his intention to marry neither of them. The photograph illustrates the palpable desolation in the eyes of both of them. Days afterward, Cohen had an accident with a tray of glasses, severing the artery in her right hand, which required nine stitches in her wrist. It is not known whether it was a genuine accident or a cry for help, given the recent revelations. In any event, her future as a pianist was now uncertain and, for the moment, she could no longer play Bax’s music, which she had championed worldwide.
Despite all, Bax started composing a new work for her, Concertante for the Left-Hand, writing to her: “My darling Bunty, I am thinking of you with much love…Never suppose anything else, your always loving Arn.” Unbelievably, their tender love for each other had survived.
Unraveling the delicate skein of Cohen and Bax’s quixotic relationship, three elements can be discerned: music, which brought them together in the first place; dramatic emotion flowing from and itself inspiring the music; and, powered by these two, the third element of barely restrained eroticism, which is shot through their lifelong correspondence.
On October 3, 1953, while they were on separate trips to Ireland, Bax sent Cohen a telegram asking her to meet him. She never made it in time. At 10 p.m. that evening, Bax died of heart failure following a coronary thrombosis, aged 69. Despite the infelicities on both sides, they had been tender soulmates and creative partners for over 40 years. Cohen attended Bax’s funeral, and later in the month there was a memorial service in London for Bax, who had been knighted in 1937 and appointed Master of the King’s Music in 1942. The service was attended by Cohen and Mary Gleaves, both of whom Bax had loved.
Following Bax’s death, Cohen started to rebuild her life. She continued to perform, maintained her social engagements, and was honored in a number of countries, having already been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1938.
In 1956, while performing for the remaining British soldiers in Germany, she visited the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, about which experience she wrote movingly in her autobiography.
She retired in 1960, having graced the concert halls of the world for over 40 years. Cohen died of pneumonia on November 13, 1967, at the age of 71. Two obituaries neatly encapsulate the strands of this complex personality. The Times of London described her as “one of the most persuasive and accomplished exponents of modern English piano music,” while The Jerusalem Post praised her as “a self-styled fervent Zionist.” A month after her funeral, a memorial service was held in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, attended by numerous dignitaries from the fields of music, politics, and religion. Her will was published in 1968. She left a selection of original music manuscripts by, among others, Bax and Vaughan Williams, as well as her autograph collection, to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, also bequeathing to the British Library her complete collection of correspondence with her beloved Arnold Bax.
Cohen and Bax’s pathos-laden love story would lend itself beautifully to cinematic treatment and would itself be worth the price of admission, but there’s much more to this legendary figure than that. Harriet Cohen has fallen under the radar for some years now. As we move toward the 130th anniversary of her birth, it’s time that this situation was rectified and that she be recognized not only as one of the 20th century’s foremost pianists but also as a great friend of Israel and the Jewish people.■
Significant sources
Tracing the enigma that is Harriet Cohen has involved quite some Sherlock Holmes sleuthing. First port of call was the wonderful biography titled Music and Men: The Life and Loves of Harriet Cohen by historian Helen Fry (The History Press Ltd, 2008). Fry kindly advised in the preparation of this article and gave me permission to quote extracts from her book. I then contacted an old acquaintance from my Jewish youth club days, renowned pianist Margaret Fingerhut. She has recorded many of Arnold Bax’s piano pieces and has performed with eminent British conductors such as Vernon Handley and Bryden Thomson. However, she informed me that neither of those conductors had worked with Cohen, so that avenue was blocked. But when one door closes another opens, and she referred me to Anne Sebba, biographer of such diverse women as Wallis Simpson and Mother Teresa, who had some years ago given a BBC Radio talk on Cohen titled “The Daffodil Maiden.” The company that produced the talk was able to provide me with a listening version, and I’m grateful to Whistledown for the consent to use extracts from the broadcast. It contains recordings of interviews with Cohen, as well as musical extracts played by her. Among the treasures is a poorly recorded but very poignant clip of Cohen playing Bax’s Concertante for the Left-Hand, referred to above, which segues into a modern version expressively rendered by Fingerhut. If this circuitous journey of mine succeeds in bringing the name of Harriet Cohen, previously so well known on both sides of the Atlantic, back into the public domain, then it will have been worthwhile.
