Maureen Jones obit

Vale Maureen Jones, pioneering Australian pianist

Like many gifted musicians of her generation, Jones built her career in Europe, but she will be rememembered as a key figure in the early history of Musica Viva Australia. 

She was not on the list.

Australian pianist Maureen Jones, a key figure in the early history of Musica Viva Australia and an acclaimed chamber musician whose career took her from Sydney to Europe’s major concert stages, has died in Lugano, Switzerland, aged 99.

Musica Viva Australia CEO Anne Frankenberg described Jones as “fundamental to Musica Viva Australia’s history”, noting that she was invited to join the organisation’s original ensemble in her early twenties, before embarking on a distinguished European career.

“She returned several times to perform and to teach,” Frankenberg said. “Her incredible musicianship and natural glamour significantly built the audience for chamber music in this country.”

Jones was born in Sydney and spent her formative years on the city’s upper North Shore. At the age of 10 she was invited by Edgar Bainton, then director of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, to study there with pianist Alexander Hmelnitsky. While still a student, she had her professional debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

After graduating, Jones was invited by Richard Goldner to join the fledgling Musica Viva ensemble. Her musicianship, charisma and striking stage presence contributed to the establishment of the organisation and its audience for chamber music in Australia.

Like many gifted Australian musicians of her generation, Jones subsequently travelled to London to pursue her career. She soon found the city uncongenial, however, and moved to Switzerland, where she formed a close musical partnership with Australian violinist Brenton Langbein.

The pair formed a duo in 1952 and performed widely throughout Switzerland and Italy, including for the Società dei Concerti Trieste. Their collaborations extended to the acclaimed horn trio formed with fellow Australian Barry Tuckwell. The trio was the subject of a commission from the Edinburgh Festival to Australian composer Don Banks, whose 1962 Horn Trio became a cornerstone of the repertoire. Jones, Langbein and Tuckwell also recorded the work alongside Brahms’s Horn Trio.

Jones’s European life was further shaped by her marriages to two distinguished Italian musicians. Her first husband was pianist Dario De Rosa, of the celebrated Trio di Trieste, with whom she had a daughter, Nicoletta. She later married cellist Amadeo Baldovino, also of the Trio di Trieste.

Her career encompassed solo, chamber and orchestral performance. She appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich and Berlin Philharmonic, and performed at the Edinburgh Festival and for the BBC, RAI and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Her chamber music partners and collaborators included members of the Amadeus Quartet and the Quintetto Fauré di Roma, while her four-hand piano repertoire with De Rosa formed another important strand of her musical life.

Despite establishing her life and career in Europe, Jones maintained strong connections with Australia. She returned regularly as a performer, teacher and adjudicator, and remained closely associated with Musica Viva. One of her later major appearances for the organisation came in 1997, when she performed as part of its Schubertiade celebrations. At 69, Jones delivered a performance still remembered for its precision, authority and sheer presence – qualities that had marked her career from its earliest days.

In a 2017 interview with Miriam Cosic, published to mark her 90th birthday, Jones revealed that she was still performing and practising every day.

Remembered for her talent, musical authority, elegance and glamour, Jones’s death has been reported in Swiss and Italian media, where she was remembered as “the lady of the piano”.