Bernard Roberts - Obituary
Bernard Roberts was a pianist admired for the lyricism of his performances and for his teaching skills
Bernard Roberts
Bernard Roberts, who has died aged 80, was a British pianist known for his lyrical performances of music by composers such as Bach and Beethoven. He was also a much-loved chamber musician, forming a celebrated piano trio with the violinist Manoug Parikian and the cellist Amaryllis Fleming.
Although his repertoire was largely classical, Roberts ventured into contemporary music, for example giving the premieres of the third and fifth piano sonatas by Stephen Dodgson , whose music he championed tirelessly. He also recorded works by Hindemith and Frank Bridge.
Roberts’s complete cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas at the Wigmore Hall in 1980 attracted admiration, and his recording of the works on the Nimbus label from the 1970s — he was the first pianist to record the full collection direct to disc — is among the finest available; he later recorded the first CD cycle.
Yet what made Roberts stand out to many was his gentle manner. As Adrian Jack noted at the time of Roberts’s 70th birthday recital at St John’s, Smith Square, Roberts “never shot to fame by winning a competition, nor covered himself in glory by standing in at short notice for an indisposed star, but he certainly proved his staying power”.
Others admired the honesty and power of his interpretations: there were no histrionics – on stage or off – nor dazzling displays of technical wizardry. Here was a pianist who took the long view, both in life and in music, the ideal disposition for works such as Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.
John Bernard Roberts was born into a musical family in Manchester on July 23 1933, the youngest of three children. His mother had studied piano with Egon Petri and his father was a librarian who moonlighted as a critic for The Manchester Guardian.
Bernard took lessons with Dora Gilson and, aged 15, won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied with Eric Harrison and was the soloist in Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto in December 1953.
He continued his studies with Ferdinand Rauter, and made his Wigmore Hall debut performing Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Medtner in 1957 — playing, according to one critic, “with a remarkable degree of accuracy and poise”. His account of Copland’s Piano Fantasy at the Purcell Room in 1969 was commended for his “superb performance [which] was fully worthy of the occasion in its urgency, intimacy and long-range concentration”.
There were occasional forays with famous conductors – a Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4 with Simon Rattle in Birmingham, for example – as well as overseas performances and masterclasses, including at the Van Cliburn Competition in Texas; but generally Roberts was content to be approached rather than to push himself forward.
Between London concerts – including an appearance at the Proms in 1979 performing Mozart with the BBC Philharmonic under Janos Fürst – he was a sought-after teacher. His masterclasses at Dartington always drew enthusiastic students.
Roberts formed a piano quartet (with Bernard Richards, Nona Liddell and Jean Stewart) and later played in the Tononi Piano Trio (with Jürgen Hess and Olga Hegedus), before setting up the Parikian-Fleming-Roberts Trio in 1975 .
As a student, Roberts enjoyed commuting by train between Manchester and London. He built a model of the entire LMS railway line between St Pancras and Manchester in the basement of his home and ran the trains along it according to a 1950s timetable. It was lovingly reassembled in the attic when he retired to North Wales.
Bernard Roberts married first, in 1955, Pat Russell; the marriage was dissolved, and in 1992 he married Caroline Ireland, his agent, who survives him with two sons of his first marriage, both of whom are professional musicians. The three of them performed all Beethoven’s works for piano trio in 1997 at Dartington.
Bernard Roberts, born July 23 1933, died November 3 2013
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