Amaryllis Fleming was a British 'cellist, best known for being a great teacher later in life. She was born in December 1925, and started playing the piano at the age of three. At nine years of age she asked if she could learn the violin, but Amaryllis' mother directed her to study the cello. In 1937 she was sent to Downe House school in Berkshire as a boarder, but travelled to London for occasional lessons with John Snowden at the Royal College of Music (RCM), where she made speedy progress. At 15 she made her first radio broadcast on the BBC's Children's Hour.
At the age of 17, she was offered a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music full-time under Ivor James. She also studied with Pierre Fournier in Paris, who offered her free tuition, and became a close personal friend. 'He opened my eyes to the immense possibilities of colour, nuance and phrasing,' Fleming told the writer Margaret Campbell, 'particularly in regard to bowing technique which enabled me to acquire a palette of far greater variety.' She also studied with Guilhermina Suggia, Gaspar Cassado and Enrico Mainardi, and in Prades, studied the Schumann Concerto with Casals.
As she grew older, and less interested in concertizing, she also fell under the shadow of the fame of Jacqueline du Pre, the rising young cello star. Fleming concentrated on chamber music, but still made a few solo appearances. In 1968 she played Dvorak's First Concerto at the Wigmore Hall, where her lovely tone could be heard to full effect. That same year she formed the Fleming String Trio with the violist Kenneth Essex and the violinist Granville Jones (replaced, after his death in a car crash, by Emanuel Hurwitz).
A stroke in 1993 left her weakened, and although she could no longer play publicly, she fought her way back to health and concentrated on her teaching. 'She was an extraordinary teacher, with a prodigious memory for how a student had played one or two years earlier,' says Michal Kaznowski of the Maggini Quartet. 'A lesson with her was fundamental in changing my bowing arm.'
She died in 1999 on July the 27th, in a hospital at the age of 73, as reported by the Associated Press. The Times reported that "she never became complacent. She sought out the best teachers in Europe and willingly experimented with many techniques, including practicing naked in front of the mirror." The Daily Telegraph said friends often remarked: "Men fell in heaps around her." |
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