Audio File
Northern School Of Music (NSM)
2019

Dorothy Ardern talks about her lessons with Marjorie Proudlove, piano teacher at the Northern School of Music, 1940s-1950s.

Dorothy: My private piano tutor was Marjorie Proudlove.
Heather: Oh, I know the name.
D: Yeah, Marjorie Proudlove. She was wonderful. She really taught me how to play the piano. She was an excellent teacher, excellent and it was like all starting again. I thought I could play and there were times when she said ‘you play very well, Dorothy’. I’d learnt Chopin’s Revolutionary [Etude]. Do you play an instrument?
H: No, I don’t, no.
D: I’d learnt Chopin’s Revolutionary Study one holiday and when I got in, the beginning of the next term, she said ‘have you had a nice holiday?’ I said ‘I’ve got a piece to play for you’. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘you’ve been practising well’. I said ‘yes’. She said ‘what are you playing? Oh! Chopin’s Revolutionary!? Can you manage that?’ I said, ‘well I can play it, yes’. She was amazed actually. It has a lot of work in the right hand for octave stuff, which with my small hand was difficult, but the left hand was ferocious. It would go ‘brrrrrrrr brrrrrr’ up and down like this, you know. Very fast moving it is and when I’d finished playing – it only lasts about three minutes – it’s a long time, a lot of music in three minutes… when I’d finished playing she said ‘well done you! I’d never have thought you could have managed that. You play very well nowadays’.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.