Susi Jeans

Who was Susi Jeans?

Susi Jeans, otherwise Lady Jeans, was an Austrian-born organist, musicologist and noted teacher. Born in Vienna, she was the oldest child of Oscar and Jektaterina Hock. Initially, she trained as a ballet dancer by the modernist teacher Gertrud Bodenwieser, but growing rather rapidly, switched to the piano. From 1925 to 1931, she studied piano at the Vienna Conservatory, with organ as a second study. This became her first instrument from about 1928, when she began studies with the composer Franz Schmidt and the organist Franz Schütz.

In 1931, she was heard by the organist and composer Charles-Marie Widor. After criticising her pedal technique, which he thought not legato enough, Widor invited her to become a student. Although she accepted his offer, Jeans was always reluctant to discuss their lessons other than to say that he was a very old man at the time.

Between 1933 and 1935, she studied at the Leipzig Kirchenmusikalisches Institut, Leipzig, with Karl Straube. It was whilst studying at Leipzig, however, that Jeans became aware of period instruments, which altered her musical interests considerably.

Her first concert tour in Britain, in 1934, was a great success and the following year she returned to play at the Handel Festival in Cambridge. During this tour she met the astronomer and mathematician Sir James Hopwood Jeans OM, whom she married, in Vienna, in September 1935. They lived together at Cleveland Lodge, Westhumble in Surrey and gave issue to three children before Jeans' death in 1946. Before their marriage, Cleveland Lodge boasted a large three manual Willis II instrument in a specially built concert hall. In 1937, however, it was supplemented by a new tracker action instrument, built into her study by Eule of Bautzen. Although she later claimed that the action was installed by Hill, Norman and Beard, it was, nevertheless, the first neo-Classical instrument built in Britain in the 20th century.