thumb|Moore during his visit to [[Helsinki, Finland in June 1968]]
Gerald Moore (30 July 1899 – 13 March 1987) was an English classical pianist best known for his career as a collaborative pianist for many distinguished musicians. Among those with whom he was closely associated were Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Kathleen Ferrier, Elisabeth Schumann, Hans Hotter, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Victoria de los Ángeles and Pablo Casals.
Moore gave lectures on stage, radio and television about musical topics. He also wrote about music, publishing volumes of memoirs and practical guides to interpretation of lieder.
Life and career
Early years
Moore was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, on 30 July 1899, He was educated at Watford Grammar School, and took piano lessons from a local teacher. Though innately musical, with perfect pitch, Moore was a reluctant piano student: he later said that his mother had to drag him to the piano, "an unwilling, snivelling child – I did not absorb music into my being until my middle twenties."
When Moore was 13 the family emigrated to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he studied with the pianist Michael Hambourg, a former pupil of Anton Rubinstein. Moore was distracted from his musical studies by a strong attraction to Anglo-Catholicism; he thought for some time that he had a vocation to become a priest. Hambourg died in 1915, after which his son, the cellist Boris Hambourg, took Moore as his accompanist on a tour of forty engagements in western Canada. His parents concluded that Toronto was not the place for him to build the career as a pianist that they hoped for. They sent him back to England, to lodge with relatives in London, and pursue his studies with Michael Hambourg's pianist son, Mark.
Early career as accompanist
While studying with Mark Hambourg, Moore earned money as an accompanist. The director of the Guildhall School of Music, Landon Ronald, heard him play at a recital and advised him to pursue a career as an accompanist. He toured as accompanist for the singer Vladimir Rosing along with pianist Myra Hess in the north of England in late 1922.
In 1921 Moore made his first gramophone recording, accompanying the violinist Renée Chemet for His Master's Voice. They made several more recordings together, but Moore's preference was for accompanying singers rather than instrumentalists. He recorded frequently with Peter Dawson in the early 1920s, and went on a recital tour of Britain with him; it was Dawson who recommended him to the tenor John Coates, who became an important influence on Moore's career.