Vera Bradford

Who was Vera Bradford?

Vera Florence Bradford was an Australian classical pianist and teacher, with a very long career. Her playing was admired for its depth and beauty of tone, classical unity and tremendous power.

Vera Bradford was born in Melbourne to a musical family. Her mother Edith was a pianist, and her father Frederick and brother Cec were violinists. She started learning the piano at the age of seven, and she graduated from the University of Melbourne Conservatorium in 1927, with the highest honours. In 1928 she took up a scholarship with Percy Grainger in Chicago. She also studied at the Chicago Musical College with Rudolph Ganz and Alexander Raab. It was Raab who introduced her to the technique that made her famous, the 'arm weight' technique of the Russian teacher Theodor Leschetizky, which she had first experienced when seeing Benno Moiseiwitsch perform in Melbourne in the 1920s. It was this which developed the big tone and control that became a feature of her performances of the works of Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Liszt. Raab insisted she not play the piano for a year, so that she could unlearn her previous techniques, and practise with the piano lid down.