| Biography | Marie Novello (18981928) was a Welsh pianist. She was one of Theodor Leschetizky's last students and performed in public from childhood. Her early death from throat cancer cut short a promising career just as she began to record for one of the major English labels, having already amassed a considerable discography for one of its second-rank competitors.
Marie Novello was born Marie Williams, in 1898 in Maesteg, Glamorgan, the daughter of one William Thomas Williams and Anne Bedlington Kirkhouse.[2] She owed her name to adoption by her piano teacher, Clara Novello Davies, mother of Ivor Novello and also a celebrated singing teacher. Following studies with her mother, Marie was among the last students of Theodor Leschetizky. He denied her first request to study with him in 1912, as she spoke only English; she responded by learning German, whereupon he relented. |