Softcover. 8vo. 77 pp. Very uncommon signed book from the beloved English pianist and accompanist for many famous musicians and in particular Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Victoria de los Ángeles and Pablo Casals. He has here inscribed to the popular British soprano Margaret Eaves "To my dear friend Margaret / With admiration + best wishes/ from / Gerald Moore / 21 March 1950" in black ink to the ffe, also with Eaves's ownership signature dated 1947. Paper covers very lightly worn, a fine copy in protective glassine paper. Signed volumes from Moore are uncommon. 

By the end of the 1930s Moore was so well known as an accompanist that Myra Hess invited him to give a talk about his profession at one of her of lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery. The pianist Joseph Cooper wrote of this, and later similar talks, “He revealed a sense of verbal timing of which any professional comic would be proud. His unique blend of wit and wisdom not only pleased the cognoscenti but also won over ordinary people who had no idea that classical music could be fun.” Moore’s first book, The Unashamed Accompanist (1943) had its origins in these talks.

Moore retired from public performances in 1967, with a farewell concert in which he accompanied three of the singers with whom he was long associated: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Victoria de los Ángeles and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. This famed concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall – recorded by EMI and reissued in 1987 – concluded with Moore playing alone—an arrangement for solo piano of Schubert‘s An die Musik.  He made his last studio recording in 1975.