My mother Ruth Loveday-Stanfield, who has died aged 86, was an acclaimed concert pianist both in her own right and as an accompanist to my father, the violinist Alan Loveday.
Ruth was born in Stoke Newington, north London, to Max Steinfield, a diamond cutter and merchant, and his wife, Ada (nee Flatto), an artist. Ruth’s wider family was of Russian-Polish origins and populated with high achievers, including her cousins Jacob Bronowski, the renowned scientist, and Leo Baron, who played an active part in the movement against white rule in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) as a lawyer and later as acting chief justice of the independent country.
At Clapton County secondary school Ruth showed early talent as a pianist, and in 1948 went on to win a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, where she won the McEwen piano prize and met Alan over a game of table tennis. They soon performed together in many concerts in Britain and abroad, including the Prague Spring international music festival and an extensive tour of New Zealand and Australia, where Ruth was hailed by one newspaper as “a player of accomplished ability and wonderful technical skill and dexterity”. She went on to give a number of solo broadcasts for the BBC, as well as recitals in the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre in London and at numerous other concert venues, both as a soloist and in partnership with Alan.
Ruth also composed and arranged various pieces for violin, piano, recorder and voice, including a full-length opera for children entitled The Blue Bird, which received performances conducted by Antony Hopkins. In the 1970s, when she was in her 40s, Ruth became a teacher of piano and recorder, inspiring her many young pupils with her passion for music.
In later life, Ruth had to cope with the death of my brother, the house music DJ and producer Ian Loveday. One of the most effective strategies she found to deal with her grief was to throw herself back into playing the piano and she became a performer once again, giving piano recitals in local church halls in Kew and Chiswick. At the first of these recitals she performed a piece she had written in Ian’s memory, a passionate and furious composition set against a repetitive single bass-note pulse at 130 beats per minute – house music tempo.
Ruth lived in London throughout her life and after retiring from teaching in 2014 remained in Chiswick. Although she and Alan were divorced in 1979, they maintained a close friendship and his death last year affected her deeply.
She is survived by me and her grandchildren, Molly and Daniel.
