Myra Hess Festival

Jessica Duchen, author of 'Myra Hess – National Treasure', is joined in conversation with composer Nigel Hess, great-nephew of pianist Myra Hess. They will share the lasting legacy, social impact and historic relationship that wartime concerts have had with the National Gallery.

This intimate conversation promises to touch on nostalgia and the mesmerising effects music and art can have on an individual.

This talk will take place after the Lunchtime Concert 2025 with Jessica Duchen and Lara Melda in Room 36, as part of the Myra Hess Festival.

Jessica Duchen is a music critic, author and librettist. Her latest book, 'Myra Hess – National Treasure', was published in 2025 (Kahn & Averill) and praised as ‘magnificent’ by The Spectator. She has written for The Times and Sunday Times, the I News and BBC Music Magazine and her operatic work includes 'Silver Birch' and 'Dalia' with the composer Roxanna Panufnik for Garsington Opera. Earlier books include biographies of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Gabriel Fauré, plus seven novels on music-related topics. She has created and performed numerous narrated concerts which have featured at Wigmore Hall, Kings Place and festivals in Britain, France and Australia.

Nigel Hess works extensively as a composer for television, theatre, film and the concert hall. He has scored over twenty Royal Shakespeare Company productions and received numerous accolades and awards for his work. Hess devised Admission: One Shilling, the story of the National Gallery's lunchtime concerts during the Second World War (founded by his great-aunt, pianist Dame Myra Hess), and this has been performed extensively around the UK and abroad by Dame Patricia Routledge and Piers Lane. Another notable work includes the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Classical Brits Nomination for Composer of the Year), commissioned by HRH The Prince of Wales in memory of his grandmother, and premièred and recorded by pianist Lang Lang. He also created a ballet based on The Old Man of Lochnagar, a children’s story written by the Prince of Wales in 1980.

During the Second World War, many of London's music halls, theatres, galleries and museums closed.

With the National Gallery empty of its paintings, the celebrated pianist Myra Hess had the revolutionary idea of using the Gallery as a venue for concerts to help raise morale and make classical music available to all.

From October 1939, Hess and her friends from the world of classical music performed concerts Monday to Friday, every week of the year, and even during the Blitz. They were a huge success with queues forming in Trafalgar Square.

We now hold an annual concert in commemoration of Hess.