‘Ashtray’ Annie Fischer was a piano giant. Why didn’t more people realise this?

This year marks the centenary of a pianist whom London orchestral players nicknamed ‘Ashtray Annie’. Only at the keyboard did she have a cigarette out of her mouth. Annie Fischer (1914–1995) was one of those female pianists who, despite their spinsterish appearance, possessed far richer imaginations than splashy male virtuosos. Clara Haskil and Marcelle Meyer also come to mind.

Of the three, only Haskil — a physically frail Romanian celebrated for her purity of line — is today given the recognition she deserves: Pope Francis recently named her as his favourite Mozart pianist. Meyer, who as a young woman played for Debussy, had a technique of such refinement that she could liquefy trills and arpeggios without any loss of accuracy. I remember playing one of her Chabrier recordings for The Spectator’s new arts editor. ‘How is this not water?’ he asked. Her omission from Philips’s 200-CD set of 72 Great Pianists of the 20th Century was inexplicable.

Annie Fischer’s absence from the same set was more than inexplicable: it was a disgrace.