Maria Lidka - obituary - Telegraph As a child Maria was surrounded by music. Her father bought her a subscription to see the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Fürtwangler; she also saw performances by Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, Artur Schnabel, Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubinstein. The cellist Gregor Piatigorsky recommended that she study with Josef Wolfsthal, and after Wolfsthal's death in 1931 she took lessons with Max Rostal. With the rise of the Nazis, her progress was interrupted. Her father was banned from his profession and died just eight months later; meanwhile, Rostal - who taught three members of the Amadeus Quartet - had emigrated to Britain. Maria Lidka had intended to go to Paris, but instead followed her teacher to London in 1934. Her Wigmore Hall debut in 1939, playing music by Franck and Mozart, was accompanied by Gerald Moore, and soon she joined Walter Susskind (piano) and Karel Horitz (cello) in the Czech Trio as a replacement for Marie Hlounova. By 1940 she had changed her name to the more Czech-sounding Maria Lidka. Before long she was playing in Myra Hess's lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery, teaming up with a variety of musicians, including Britten. Evenings were often spent making music for pleasure, and on one occasion she was arrested making her way home after the curfew and spent the night in custody. The case was dismissed by a magistrate and the arresting officer later proposed to her. Her detention proved fortuitous because her boarding house in Belsize Park took a direct hit from a German bomb that night. As well as championing new music, Maria Lidka made regular appearances on the BBC and with orchestras and festivals around the country and overseas. However, in 1963 she was widowed. With two young sons to support, Maria Lidka became a sought-after teacher particularly at the Royal College of Music where she was Professor of Violin from 1968 to 1985. She still played in public, however, on the "Willemotte" Stradivarius violin of 1734. In 1955 Maria Lidka married Walter May, a fellow Jewish-German exile who managed a brush factory in Cardiff and was the brother of Dr Edward May, a prominent amateur cellist. Her two sons survive her. Maria Lidka, born May 29 1914, died December 12 2013