Helen Perkin

Perkin was born in Hackney, London, the youngest of six children. Her mother was a pianist, and from the age of 11 she took lessons from Arthur Alexander. At 16 she entered the Royal College of Music, continuing her lessons with Alexander, and subsequently (through the Octavia Travelling Scholarship),[https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3549468 Royal College of Music Octavia Scholarship, Kew Archives] studied orchestration with Anton Webern in Vienna and piano with Eduard Steuermann.[https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/783d4fe2517f465f90d8367c8d2b92f0 Radio Times Issue 695, 24 January 1937, p. 44] She first took composition lessons from John Ireland in 1927, and in 1930 won the Cobbett Competition with her one movement Phantasy Quartet.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ERDFUoTmK0sC&q=Perkin&pg=PA119 Emma Hornby, David Maw (ed.) Essays on the History of English Music (2010), p. 119] That year she was the soloist in Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto at the RCM, conducted by Malcolm Sargent. By then she was broadcasting regularly as a pianist, with a repertoire that soon stretched from Haydn and Schubert through to Ibert, Ravel, Berg and Egon Wellesz.[https://books.google.com/books?id=CVCtkShvDSkC&dq=%22Helen+Perkin%22&pg=PA357 Jennifer Doctor, Arnold Whittall. The BBC and Ultra Modern Music (1999), p. 357]

Meanwhile, Ireland was working on his own piano concerto with Perkin in mind as the soloist. He dedicated his Piano Concerto in E{{flat}} to her and she performed its premiere on 30 October 1930 at the Queen's Hall Proms. There are musical references to her Phantasy Quartet in the first movement. She was also the soloist for the first performance of Ireland's Legend in 1934, again at Queen's Hall.[https://booklets.idagio.com/747313259878.pdf Richards, Fiona. Notes to Naxos CD 8.572598 (2011)]

Fiona Richards suggests that Ireland's relationship with Perkin was "a demanding and possessive one", and she later confessed "the situation became so impossible that a break had to be made".Letter from Perkin to John Longmire, John Ireland Trust The rift was hastened by her marriage in 1935 to the avant garde architect George Mountford Adie (1901-1989), after which the two ceased to communicate for many years. Ireland eventually removed the dedication to her in the score of the Piano Concerto, and wrote her increasingly vitriolic letters in the 1950s.

Three children were born before 1940. During this period she and her husband met the Russian esotericist P D Ouspensky and became followers. During the war Perkin concentrated on bringing up her children. Although she revived both her composition and performing careers after the war, the long break did affect the scope of her opportunities when compared to higher profile contemporaries such as Eileen Joyce and Myra Hess.

Perkin began gaining notice as a composer from 1928, when her Theme and Variations for piano was broadcast on BBC Radio. She was 19. The following year her prize-winning Phantasy Quartet was performed by the eminent Spencer Dyke Quartet.[https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/353382ad835b4890aa5d96fb42def8d8?page=12 Ludlow, Rupert. 'A Composer with Something to Say'], Radio Times Issue 706, 11 April 1937, p. 12 A Piano Trio followed in 1931, performed at the Societe National in Paris.[https://www.4barsrest.com/articles/2021/1944.asp 'Helen Perkin' at 4barsrest] Her Episode for piano was performed at the Winter Proms on 2 January 1936, with Perkin as soloist.[https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/er6xj5 BBC Proms Performance archive] In 1937 a concert of her chamber music was broadcast by the BBC, including the Piano Trio, the Four Preludes for piano (1933) and Spring Rhapsody for violin and piano, with soloist Antonio Brosa.Radio Times Issue 706, 11 April 1937, p. 78 Her Piano Sonata also received its premiere at Queen's Hall in October 1937.The Times, 11 October, 1937 There were further large scale piano works after the war, including Eleven Impressions (1947).

Other works include two string quartets, and a Cello Sonata in E{{flat}} (1957) with a Serenade movement in five-eight time, performed and broadcast several times with cellist Florence Hooton.Musical Times Vol. 99, No. 1385, July 1958, p. 379 The three movement suite for piano Village Fair (1934) is an example of her lighter music. She also composed for film and television (such as The Inward Eye, 1955)[https://web.archive.org/web/20201020054237/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b7f9c15dd British Film Institute, The Inward Eye] and two children's ballets for television, Calamity at Court (1955)[https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/1b0a4ac9bb42455c87120e413df03cd7 Radio Times, Issue 1641, 24 April 1955, p. 38] and The Wonder Bird (1961),[https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/dfa4be90d4ae4049a801ca85d396065c Radio Times, Issue 1948, 11 March 1961] both with choreographer Nesta Brooking (1906-2006). As with John Ireland, Perkin turned to composing for brass band in her later years with three suites that were used as test pieces: Carnival, (1957), Cordell Suite (1959), and Island Heritage (1962).[https://www.robertfarnonsociety.org.uk/index.php/legends/helen-perkin Philip L Scowcroft. 'Helen Perkin, 1909-1996', Robert Farnon Society]

After World War II Helen Perkin and her husband visited the Russian mystic George Gurdjieff in Paris. Following the death of Ouspensky in 1947 they were increasingly active in the Gurdjieff spiritual movement, first in London (where a fellow member of the movement was Jane Heap), and (from 1965) in Sydney, Australia, where they emigrated and remained for the rest of their lives.Joseph Azize: [https://books.google.com/books?id=3tj_MgEACAAJ George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia] (2007) They established the Gurdjieff Society of Newport. Recordings of her playing music for Gurdjieff by Thomas de Hartmann were issued on CD under the name Helen Adie.[https://www.gurdjieffbooksandmusic.com/product-page/helen-adie-music-of-the-search-gurdjieff-de-hartmann-music-for-piano Music of the Search, CD AD 200] But she was also a Movements teacher and composed music for the Movements as well. Some of this music has been published and privately circulated.[https://gurdjieffclub.com/en/helen-ejdi/ 'Helen Adie', at Gurdjieff Club]

George and Helen Adie were depicted as the fictional characters Mr and Mrs Todd Ashby in Carl Ginsburg's Medicine Journeys: Ten Stories (Center Press, 1983). George Adie died in 1989. Perkin died in Australia seven years later, aged 88.[https://www.gurdjieff.org/azize2.htm Azize, Joseph. 'Helen Adie: An Appreciative Essay' in The Gurdjieff International Review Vol. 6 (2003)]

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.salonwithoutboundaries.com/composer-of-the-month-1/2021/11/1/helen-perkin-1909-1996 Helen Perkin, 1909-1996, at Salon Without Boundaries, November 2021]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEgolC8cvuk 'Cortège' and 'The Wheel' (from Four Preludes) performed by Gary O'Shea]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLqzOmaRONo Carnival, performed by the Frederiksberg Brass Band]

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Category:1909 births

Category:1996 deaths

Category:20th-century English classical pianists

Category:20th-century English musicians

Category:20th-century English women pianists

Category:Alumni of the Royal College of Music

Category:Brass band composers

Category:English emigrants to Australia

Category:English women classical composers

Category:Students of George Gurdjieff

Category:Pupils of Anton Webern