Letter: Claus Moser’s lifelong passion was music

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/07/letter-claus-moser-obituary

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Claus Moser had a wide circle of true friends, many of them drawn from politics and university life, but his lifelong passion was music. He played the piano very well and studied it seriously into his old age, first with Louis Kentner and latterly with Imogen Cooper and Graham Johnson. He loved performing the Mozart concertos with orchestra and I recall in particular a concert at St John’s Smith Square, conducted by a very young Daniel Harding, at which he enchanted the audience with his evident joy (and skill) in music-making, only to cause a momentary wave of horror when, after taking his bows, he swooned into unconsciousness, fortunately for only a few minutes.

In fact Claus’s great physical resilience – and even more important, his willpower – saw him through many illnesses and physical setbacks. I was lucky enough to play piano duets with him regularly for half a century. We concentrated on the Viennese school: Mozart, Beethoven and above all Schubert (the Fantasia was his favourite). In recent years, after he had experienced difficulties in co-ordinating brain and hands, he felt his duet days were over and he presented me with his copy of the duet version of Don Giovanni, saying he would no longer be needing it. But he agreed to try once more one of our regular fun “warm-ups”, Mozart’s D major sonata, and mirabile dictu his memory helped to guide his fingers unerringly through all three movements; it was very moving to share with him this coming back to musical life.

Sadly it proved to be only a temporary reprieve. While we were holidaying together last month, at the home of mutual friends in France, he moved towards the piano saying: “The only thing I can play now is this”. His right hand hovered over the keys for a few seconds but then withdrew.

He took me on one side and said he had decided to resign from the Lords: he was therefore looking for a new cause to which he could devote some of his energies – as if at his age serving on the boards of the Rayne and Hamlyn Foundations was not enough. I knew that the National Youth Orchestra is preparing a major new appeal and needs support at the highest level; I put them in touch and just four days after their return to London, Claus and Mary were at the Albert Hall enjoying the NYO’s Mahler 9 Prom and already discussing ways and means of raising cash to help the young musicians he so much admired.