Frida Carola Johanetta Kindler (1879 – 26 January 1964) was a Dutch concert pianist and teacher active in the UK, a pupil of

Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...

and later the wife of composer

Bernard van Dieren Bernard Hélène Joseph van Dieren (27 December 188724 April 1936) was a Dutch composer, critic, author, and writer on music, much of whose working life was spent in England. Biography Van Dieren was the last of five children of a Dutch Rotterda ...

. Kindler was born in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

. Her father was the oboist and conductor Johan Karl Eduard Kindler (1838–1899) and her younger brother was the cellist (and later conductor)

Hans Kindler Johannes Hendrikus Philip Kindler (January 8, 1892 – August 30, 1949) was a Dutch American cellist and conductor who founded the National Symphony Orchestra. He was married to painter Alice Kindler and Persis Chase Myers. Kindler as c ...

. She attended the Berlin Conservatoire and Busoni's master classes of 1900–1901. Busoni dedicated his 1908 piano piece ''Nuit de Noël'' to Kindler. She made her UK debut in Birmingham in 1903 and played at the

Proms The BBC Proms is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London. Robert Newman founded The Proms in 1895. Since 1927, the ...

in London on 11 September 1906. During this period she bagan a long-term friendship with the headmistress Emmeline Tanner, coming to play at

Sherborne Sherborne is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in north west Dorset, in South West England. It is sited on the River Yeo (South Somerset), River Yeo, on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, east of Yeovil. The parish include ...

, and later at her other schools, even teaching for a while at Bedford High School. In 1909 Frida relocated permanently to England with

, a composer ten years her junior, whom she married on 1 January 1910. A son, Hans Jean Jules Maximilian Navarre Benvenuto Bernard van Dieren (1910–74, known as Bernard), was born the same year. They settled at 35A St George's Road, West Hampstead in the 1920s, and later at 68, Clifton Hill, St John's Wood. But by 1912 her husband's ill-health was already holding back her career as a virtuoso pianist, which over time she sacrificed to support his survival and his work as a composer, though she did continue to premiere most of her husband's piano works. On the evening of Tuesday 16 December 1930 Frida and Bernard van Dieren met

Peter Warlock Philip Arnold Heseltine (30 October 189417 December 1930), known by the pseudonym Peter Warlock, was a British composer and music critic. The Warlock name, which reflects Heseltine's interest in occult practices, was used for all his published ...

at the Duke of Wellington pub near

Sloane Square Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the central London districts of Belgravia and Chelsea, London, Chelsea, located southwest of Charing Cross, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The area forms a ...

, then went back to his basement flat at 30

Tite Street Tite Street is a street in Chelsea, London, England, within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, just north of the River Thames. It was laid out from 1877 by the Metropolitan Board of Works, giving access to the Chelsea Embankment. His ...

, where they stayed until after midnight. They were the last to see him alive: he was found dead the following morning from coal-gas poisoning. Frida continued teaching, and resumed performing after van Dieren's death in 1936.Denis ApIvor.
A Memoir of Frida Kindler (Frida Van Dieren)
' (May, 1982), Denis ApIvor Collection, McMaster University Her pupils included Dorothy E. Bradshaw, Robert Collett,

Eiluned Davies Eiluned Davies (1913-1999) was a British concert pianist and composer. Early life Born in Walthamstow, London, the daughter of Welsh bard Owen Davies of Llanarth, Davies won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music at the age of 15 (1929-19 ...

, the Scottish pianist Virginia Fortesque and the American pianist Thomas Lishman.

Denis ApIvor Denis ApIvor (14 April 191627 May 2004) was a British composer, best known for his ballet score ''Blood Wedding''. He had a parallel career as a consultant anaesthetist.Leach, Gerald. ''British Composer Profiles'' (3rd. Ed, 2012), p. 10 Biograph ...

reported her suffering from dementia in her last years. A year before her death her

Steinway Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in New York City by German piano builder Henry E. Steinway, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth le ...

grand piano was put up for sale at the Steinway showrooms in Hanover Square. She died in January 1964, aged 84.'Deaths', ''The Times'', 28 January 1964, p. 1

References

External links

Portrait of Frida Kindler
by

Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American and British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1910. Early in his ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kindler, Frida 1879 births 1964 deaths British women pianists 20th-century Dutch classical pianists 20th-century women pianists