Max Pirani

Pirani, Max

Max (Gabriel) Pirani. Pianist, teacher, b Melbourne 4 Aug 1898, d London 5 Aug 1975. His studies at the Melbourne Cons and later with Max Vogrich in New York preceded the formation (1923) of the Pirani Trio with the violinist Leila Doubleday (later Pirani) and the cellist Charles Hambourg. The trio toured widely in Europe, the Commonwealth, and the USA until 1940. In 1926 Pirani joined the faculty of the RAM. After several visits to Canada in the late 1930s, he served 1941-7 as director of the piano department of the Banff SFA. He was a lecturer and recitalist 1942-4 at the WOCM, and the founding director 1945-7 of the Music Teachers' College at the University of Western Ontario. His Canadian pupils included Dorothy Bee, Gordon K. Greene, Audrey Johannesen, Warren Mould, and John Searchfield. In 1948 he returned to England, thereafter publicizing and developing the technique of Emanuel Moor and completing the definitive biography Emanuel Moor (London 1959). In Pirani's obituary in The Times (12 Aug 1975) Sir Thomas Armstrong wrote: '[Pirani's] methods derived from the main-stream of European pianism... and they were always at the service of an exceptionally broad and discriminating musicianship.'