Eileen Joyce, Excerpts From Concertos. Sheet Music.

 Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG (1 January 1908 - 25 March 1991) was an Australian pianist. Her career spanned over 30 years and took her to every continent. She lived in England in her adult years. Her many recordings made her popular in the UK, Europe and Australia (less so in the USA) in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly during World War II; at her zenith she was compared in popular esteem with Gracie Fields and Vera Lynn.When she played in Berlin in 1947 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, an eminent German critic classed her with Clara Schumann, Sophie Menter and Teresa Carreño When she performed in the United States in 1950, Irving Kolodin called her "the world's greatest unknown pianist". She became even more well known during the 1950s, when she played 50 recitals a year in London alone, which were always sold out.She also performed a series of "Marathon Concerts", playing as many as four concertos in a single evening. Her Mozart was described as "of impeccable taste and feeling", she was a Bach player "of commanding authority", and "a Lisztian of both poetry and bravura".Her playing of Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto in the films Brief Encounter and The Seventh Veil (both 1945) helped popularise the work by bringing it to the ears of many people who did not normally listen to this sort of music. A 1950 biography of Eileen Joyce's early life became a best-seller and was translated into various languages and Braille and a 1953 feature film based on the book was made, although it was much less successful.

Despite her fame, her name slipped from public sight after her retirement in the early 1960s. She became, if not entirely forgotten, at least overlooked by a later generation of pianists and music lovers, until her recordings, many of which were 78 rpm records, became more available in CD transfers in the latter part of the 20th century. She is now considered one of the great pianists of the 20th century.