Mayer, (Sir) Robert

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Mayer, (Sir) Robert (b Mannheim, 1879; d London, 1985). Ger.-born businessman and patron of music. Met Brahms. Settled in London 1896 (Eng. cit. 1902). Founder (1923), Robert Mayer children's concerts, founder and chairman, Youth and Music. Knighted 1939, CH 1973, created KCVO on his 100th birthday, 5 June 1979. His first wife Dorothy (née Moulton Piper) (b Crouch End, London, 1886; d Henham, Essex, 1974) was one of the first sopranos to sing mus. by Schoenberg and Stravinsky in Britain before 1914. She also wrote biographies of Marie-Antoinette, the artist Angelika Kauffman, and of Spohr (London 1959).

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