Dorothy Moulton Mayer

Lady Mayer
Born
Dorothy Moulton Piper

1886 (1886)
London, England
Died1974 (aged 87–88)
Occupationssinger, philanthropist, writer, activist
OrganizationWomen's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
SpouseSir Robert Mayer (m. 1919)
Children3

Dorothy Moulton Mayer, Lady Mayer (née Piper, 1886–1974) was an English soprano, philanthropist, peace activist and biographer.

Family

Mayer was born in 1886 in Crouch End, London, England. Her father was George Piper OBE, a civil servant at the London War Office.[1] In 1919, she married the German-born businessman, banker and philanthropist Robert Mayer. They had a daughter and two sons. In 1939, her husband was knighted.[1]

Career

Mayer was an operatic and concert soprano.[2] After completing her singing studies as a student of German tenor Raimund von zur-Mühlen,[3] she performed in England before becoming an internationally known professional singer in Vienna in 1923. She was then engaged in Salzburg, Budapest and America. Mayer was an advocate for contemporary European composition, performing new works by German and Austrian composers, such Egon Wellesz, in Britain,[4] and giving first performances of composers who were in the early stages of their musical careers.[5] Mayer was one of the first British singers to perform works by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg,[6] and hosted Hungarian Béla Bartók as a guest of honour.[7][8] For her introductions of European musicians to Britainm Mayer was described in the classical music magazine Musical Opinion as "something of a musical crusader."[9]

Together with her husband, Mayer also devoted herself to promoting young musicians and in 1923 they founded the "Orchestral Concerts for Children" together.[9] The first series of concerts were conducted by Adrian Boult and Malcolm Sargent and they were later run by the BBC.[10]

Mayer was also a peace advocate and was vice president of the British section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She attended the inaugural Zagreb Conference for Peace and International Cooperation in Zagreb, Yugoslavia.[11][12] In 1940, she travelled with her husband to America where they served as representatives of the charity Save the Children.[13]

Later life

When Mayer was in her fifties she began writing biographies of historic figures.[5] Her biographies included Louise of Savoy,[14] Marie Antoinette,[15][16] Angelica Kauffman[17] and the violin virtuoso Louis Spohr.

Mayer died in 1974.[1]

Select publications

  • The Forgotten Master. The life & times of Louis Spohr (1959)
  • The Great Regent: Louise of Savoy 1476–1531 (1966)[18][19]
  • Marie Antoinette: The Tragic Queen (1969)[15][16]
  • Angelica Kauffmann, R.A., 1741–1807 (1972)[17][20]

References

  1. ^ a b c Armstrong, Robert (6 January 2011) [23 September 2004]. "Mayer, Sir Robert (1879–1985), patron of music and philanthropist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31430. Retrieved 13 January 2025. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ Potter, Tully (2024). Adolf Busch: The Life of an Honest Musician. Boydell & Brewer. p. 358. ISBN 978-0-907689-78-2.
  3. ^ Sadie, Stanley (1979). "Sir Robert Mayer at 100". The Musical Times. 120 (1636): 457–475. doi:10.2307/961097. ISSN 0027-4666.
  4. ^ Doctor, Jennifer Ruth (1999). The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922–1936: Shaping a Nation's Tastes. Cambridge University Press. p. 419. ISBN 978-0-521-66117-1.
  5. ^ a b Mayer, Robert (1970). Eternal Youth and Music: Tributes to Sir Robert Mayer on the Occasion of His Ninetieth Birthday. Smythe. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-900675-51-5.
  6. ^ The Annual Obituary. St. Martin's. 1988. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-912289-82-3.
  7. ^ Gillies, Malcolm (1982). "Bartók in Britain: 1922". Music & Letters. 63 (3/4): 213–225. ISSN 0027-4224.
  8. ^ Gombocz, Adrienne; Vikárius, László (2002). "Twenty-Five Bartók Letters to the Arányi Sisters, Wilhelmine Creel and Other Correspondents. Recently Acquired Autograph Letters in the Bartók Archives". Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 43 (1/2): 151–204. ISSN 0039-3266.
  9. ^ a b "Musical Opinion". Musical Opinion. Vol. 82, no. 974–984. 1958. p. 582.
  10. ^ Panter-Downes, Mollie (24 June 1979). "Letter from London". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 20 January 2025. Retrieved 13 January 2025.
  11. ^ Stopić, Zvonimir; Niebuhr, Robert; Pickus, David (28 October 2024). Yugoslavia, Nonalignment and Cold War Globalism: Tito's International Rise, Celebrity and Fall. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-040-19324-2.
  12. ^ Padhye, Prabhakar (1953). Yugoslavia, the Land of New Horizons. Popular Book Depot. p. 55.
  13. ^ The Layman's Magazine of the Living Church. Morehouse-Gorham. 1940. p. 3.
  14. ^ Matheson-Pollock, Helen; Paul, Joanne; Fletcher, Catherine (16 July 2018). Queenship and Counsel in Early Modern Europe. Springer. p. 127. ISBN 978-3-319-76974-5.
  15. ^ a b The Publishers Weekly. Vol. 195. F. Leypoldt. 1969. p. 57.
  16. ^ a b Goodman, Dena; Kaiser, Thomas E. (23 October 2013). Marie Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen. Routledge. p. 215. ISBN 978-1-136-70496-3.
  17. ^ a b Books and Bookmen. Vol. 18. Hansom Books. 1972. p. 25.
  18. ^ Huppert, George (1968). "Dorothy Moulton Mayer. The Great Regent. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1967. 311 pp. $6.95. - Paule Henry-Bordeaux. Louise de Savoie. Paris: Plon, 1954. 432 pp". Renaissance Quarterly. 21 (2): 203–204. doi:10.2307/2859561. ISSN 0034-4338.
  19. ^ Mitchell, A. Wess (14 October 2025). Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger. Princeton University Press. p. 275. ISBN 978-0-691-23688-9.
  20. ^ Fernandez, Segundo I. (2010) "Kauffman and Reynolds: Infant Academy Unmasked." Athanor 28: 39-47.
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