The family traveled to Sydney, Australia in October 1945 with stops along the way in Singapore and the Philippines. Kraus brought from Java nine of her evening gowns hidden by friends during the war; however, her entire winter concert wardrobe--over thirty gowns--had been confiscated by the Japanese. Mandl's pre-war fortune was either lost or inaccessible, and Kraus had to pawn her wedding ring, which the French Counsel had kept for her during the war, to help pay the bills. She also started playing in public again earning whatever small fee was offered:
We had lost everything, so I had to earn money. There was no other way; my husband was much too frail with diabetes. Now I was down to the bone. There was no air conditioning, and the days were very hot. So, I earned money, earned money sweating blood, but ever more believing that I played more beautifully than anybody ever has, mainly because my hands were so strong from the harsh physical labor I had performed with them at the prison camp.
I began to work when we got to Australia. I worked from morning to night. I would have fainted from it except that I am not a fainting person.
Kraus knew that the family relied on her. Practice and play she must.
Her first Australian post-war performance was at the Sydney Conservatorium on Wednesday, November 28, 1945. The program included Mozart's Sonata in A minor, K. 310, Schubert's A major posthumous Sonata, and Beethoven's Eroica variations. The reviewer the next day effused:
At her Conservatorium recital last night, Lili Kraus amply fulfilled the expectations that wide European fame had aroused.
This was piano-playing of a rarely poetic, delicate, and mature kind.
The following Monday evening, December 3, she appeared again in the same hall:
The radiant Lili Kraus brought such numbers crowding to her piano recital in the Conservatorium that they overflowed on to the stage. This is perhaps the first time at the Con. that a pianist has played against a human background.
Interestingly, the reviewer noted that Kraus showed "no sign of the bitter years she spent in a Japanese POW camp," this just a little less than four months after her liberation, which indicates a swift return to at least an appearance of health.
In spite of the stormy weather--thunder and lightning and a steady deluge of rain--the Con. seethed with expectant multitudes. When the little pianist appeared, elegant in her long black lace frock with its rippling streams of silver sequins, wearing a high black turban that hid the hair, and had in it a suggestion of India. . . There were grace and beauty and force in her playing, and there was that tingle of excitement in the audience that is the sure sign of profound interest.
Kraus was again riding the crest of a robust career. Her fame had preceded her, and concert dates began to pile up. The Australian Broadcast Commission (ABC) soon signed the pianist to a contract for three performances with the ABC Symphony Orchestra and fourteen solo recitals to be given in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Launceston, Hobart, Newcastle, and Brisbane. The first commitment, a broadcast recital from Sydney, was on February 9, 1946. The program included works of Brahms, Bach, Schubert, Bartók, Mozart, and Beethoven. In addition, Kraus's performaning repertoire at the time included the Stravinsky Sonata, the Schumann Carnaval, and several Haydn works.
Her concert appearances created a sensation in an Australia starved for internationally known artists. For instance, the critic for Radio Call's wrote the following about Kraus's forthcoming recital on February 26 in Adelaide:
Her visit to Adelaide is therefore an important musical event, which every true music-lover must already be anticipating with delight. She is an interpreter of great piano music rather than a mere pianist. Her audiences should carry away from her recitals memories of the good things of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, instead of the ear-tickling sensation of virtuosity. In this regard she is another Schnabel.
Just three weeks prior to this notice, an article in The Broadcaster lamented the fact that Kraus's Australian itinerary would not include Perth and western Australia. The pianist was obviously in great demand and received enormous press coverage. Her photo, and her own drawings and sketches of dress designs, were reprinted in papers throughout the country.
Her appearance during this period was predictably dramatic. On stage, she wore turbans with her thick and long black hair tucked underneath. Her head covering of choice was a black Balinese scarf fastened in the front with a gold clip, and she wore matching gold earrings. For daywear, she chose Balinese printed frocks or slacks and sweaters. She frequently wore her hair in loose braids or arranged under an oriental scarf wrapped around her head and fastened on one shoulder.
In her spare time, Kraus went for long walks, usually alone. As was true throughout her life, even during her first pregnancy, she enjoyed mountain climbing. She was also a frequent moviegoer, seeing one or two films a week. She told an interviewer in February 1946 that her favorite film stars were Claudette Colbert, Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Charles Laughton, whom she knew personally, Charlie Chaplin, Gary Cooper, and James Stewart. Throughout her life, Kraus enjoyed the cinema. Later she came to admire Vanessa Redgrave, though she never liked Laurence Olivier, whom she found too mannered.
In June 1946, Kraus and Mandl moved to New Zealand, first to Auckland and then to Christchurch. Michael, fourteen, was left in a boarding school in New South Wales, Australia, a situation which did not bring him happiness:
[It] was marginally worse than the Japanese prisoner of war camp. The discipline was almost tougher. We had to do things with which I totally disagreed. I was actually beaten more often by the Jesuit priests than by the Japanese, and I ran away. Unfortunately, since I had nowhere to go, I had to come back again.
Whether Kraus and Mandl knew of their son's unhappiness is not clear. Ruth remained behind in Australia for a few weeks but soon made the journey to New Zealand where she took her own apartment and studied acting at Canterbury University. She saw her parents once every three months or so during the remainder of their time in New Zealand. Kraus and Mandl stayed with various friends during their New Zealand sojourn.
The family was granted New Zealand citizenship, an honor bestowed upon them in recognition of Kraus's "unrelenting efforts in aid of countries in need as well as for educational achievements." Kraus and Mandl continued to use their New Zealand passports the rest of their lives, feeling grateful to the country which adopted them. Years later Kraus commented:
Everytime I go to New York, someone at Columbia Artists will ask, "Mme. Kraus, have you made your application yet for U.S. citizenship?" But I tell them I will not make such an application. For very valid reasons, I love New Zealand, and I am very beholden to the New Zealanders.
New Zealand welcomed Kraus enthusiastically. One observer remembered, "She was so beautiful and gracious and yet so natural that I felt I'd known her for a long time." Owen Jensen, well-known New Zealand musician, explained, "The Kraus magic was already at work."
Under the auspices of the Community Arts Service (CAS), Kraus played concerts throughout the country. She agreed to play for thirty cents per seat, not a bad fee if the hall were filled, which it usually was. Jensen recalls that "her CAS concerts had become a legend." Kraus played everywhere and all the time, sometimes as many as three concerts within twenty-four hours. In all, she performed more than 120 times in New Zealand, frequently on dilapidated instruments. Years later Kraus talked about those pianos:
They were the most beautiful English instruments, made by Challen. They were huge, shiny; they looked like a million dollars. But when you begin to play, even not very big chords, you hear a sound [imitates a baby crying very softly]. That was the despair of the performer. The public couldn't understand how such a gorgeous piano could sound so terrible. . . . I could never forget that! That was a real torment.
At several CAS concert engagements, Kraus appeared with violinist Robert Pickler. On three successive nights, they performed the ten Beethoven Violin-Piano Sonatas, each evening to the accompaniment of a thunderstorm, the patter of rain on the roof, and intermittent power failures. For enduring the pianos and the elements, the pianist was loved all the more. (Quoted in its entirety in the Appendix, No. 4, is a lengthy review of Kraus's recital at the Auckland Town Hall on Thursday, June 20, 1946, demonstrating the sort of adulation showered upon her.)
But, there and then I learned to play oon any instrument at all. Any. It cannot be so bad that I cannot play on it.
She also taught while in New Zealand. For example, in 1947, she conducted master classes at the Cambridge Music School. Owen Jensen recalled:
She arrived full of zest as usual, and she at once became part of the school's life: swimming, playing on occasion for the evening dances, making the last night frolic a personal romp, hobnobbing with everyone. The quintessence of grace and lithe energy--tireless--Lili gave all of herself, always, as pianist and teacher.
While immersed in her work, Kraus was also determined to fully regain her health. First, she quit smoking. Since the age of seventeen, she had smoked at least a pack daily, frequently rolling her own cigarettes. Second, one of Kraus's New Zealander students persuaded her to become a vegetarian, a diet she stayed on from 1947 until she went to London in 1959 to live with Ruth. Even after that she preferred a diet of salads, yogurt, and similar light, healthy foods.
Despite the happy sojourn in New Zealand, Kraus was beginning to feel the siren call of travel. She wanted to return to Europe, from which she had been absent almost all the decade. In February 1948, the family traveled by ship to London, arriving on a bitterly cold day. Ruth recalls:
We had not a bean, and where did we stay? At the Hyde Park Hotel, one of the most expensive hotels in town. Lili never dealt with the luggage; she left that to Dicky [Mandl's nickname] and dashed off to the nearest piano. After six weeks--I was 17--I begged Dicky for us to move somewhere cheaper, because I was so worried about the lack of money. I thought it was crazy to be living there. Dicky said don't worry, I know what I'm doing. So I went to Lili, and she picked up on my anxiety, and the two of us went to Dicky, and he agreed to move. He rented a very fancy apartment in Kensington, but still a lot cheaper than the Hyde Park, where we stayed until June.
Mandl was accustomed to living well and unwilling to accept the appearance--and the reality--of anything less. Though his pre-war fortune was gone, he struggled to maintain appearances, supported entirely by Kraus's career, which he managed with zeal and devotion.
Kraus's return to the European concert scene occurred on Tuesday, March 23, 1948, in The Hague, near the setting of her orchestral debut in 1921, a fitting site for her reentry on the European stage. Her program consisted of Mozart's Sonata in F major, K. 332; his Gluck Variations; Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy; and Bartók's Three Rondos.
A few nights later, Kraus played four Beethoven sonatas-op. 13; op. 31, no. 2; op. 53; and op. 109--in the small hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Though the review the next morning noted that Kraus "was well-received by an enthusiastic audience with emphatic applause," the reviewer was less enthusiastic:
The remembrances of Lili Kraus's playing before the war are the reason for the reception she received. Yet, this great pianist did not return to our country just as she was kept alive in our thoughts judging the concert of yesterday.
The critic also mentioned many "memory lapses" and complained her playing did not evidence the "spiritual quality and playfulness of the days before the war." A week later, the same reviewer heard another Kraus recital featuring Brahms' Rhapsody op. 79, no.2, Intermezzo op. 117, no. 2, and Rhapsody op. 119, no. 4; Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata op. 53; Bartók's Allegro Barbaro and either the second or third Rondo from 1927; and Schubert's Sonata op. 42. Of this recital in the large hall of the Concertgebouw, the reviewer wrote, "Again, I noticed a somewhat capricious and pretentious interpretation which is so characteristic of the playing of Lili Kraus after the war." Such negative criticism was new for Kraus, and she found it shocking. She felt she was playing better than ever, yet the critics did not agree.
A few months later, another critic took Kraus to the musical woodshed:
Lili Kraus has here a circle of criticless devotees. However, this single severe critic can still save her. She shows feminine charm, youthful impulsiveness, and dynamic exuberance, but it is chaotic, capricious, mannered, and exaggerated. No two bars are in the same tempo. There is no nuance between a banging forte and an affected pianissimo . . . . [There is] boring mistreating of the best music of Mozart, Bartók, Schubert. A pity, because she is intelligent and has talent as a medium for the notes.
These words differed greatly from those about her farewell performances in pre-war Amsterdam. Kraus had been away from Europe too long, and she no longer commanded the respect and admiration she once enjoyed. Reviewers complained of her overly dramatic stage mannerisms, including her stage commentary. Unfortunately for Kraus, critical expectations in Europe had changed during her eight-year absence; the pianist had not kept pace with them, and some reviewers found her anachronistic. A further annoyance to critics was Kraus's tendency to sing along with her playing, a recurring problem for her. According to witnesses, she sang that March night in The Hague on the occasion of her second European debut. Others of the general public, particularly in Holland, resented that she had her continuiedto play on radio and in public in the Dutch Indies after the Japanese conquest.
Ultimately, though, the reason for the negative criticism was based on what really mattered the most--her playing. While Kraus's hands were stronger and her musical perceptions deeper as a result of imprisonment, her playing had lost polish and finesse, a harsh truth she came to realize. While listening to a recording session she had taped just after arriving in London, she found her musicianship to be shockingly disorganized when compared to her pre-war standards. Years in the detention camps, of playing on terrible pianos, and without discerning critics took their toll:
When I heard the first thing which I played, I thought I'd die there and then. Undisciplined, incoherent, conceited, and stupid. I cannot tell you the shock.
For the next year, Kraus worked arduously to reconstruct her playing. Like the rest of Europe, she was struggling to recover from the war.
Despite all her efforts to resurrect her artistry throughout 1948, her career still lacked the momentum she wanted. A new generation of conductors assumed direction of European orchestras during the 1940s, and Kraus did not know them nor they her. She usually found herself performing in the small European cities, not musical capitals, though there were some exceptions. For instance, she played the Schumann Concerto on October 28, 1948, in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw with the Utrecht Orchestra directed by Willem Van Otterloo. Holland, as it had done prior to the war, played gracious host to Kraus, offering her solo recitals dates in various Dutch cities like Arnhem, The Hague, and Utrecht. Her repertoire on the evenings of December 29 and 30, 1948, and January 4, 1949, included:
Bach Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue Bartók 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs Brahms Intermezzo, op. 117, no. 2 Rhapsody, op. 119, no. 4 Chopin Waltzs in E minor and A-flat Revolutionary and Black-key Etudes Mozart Sonata, K. 331 Schubert Wanderer FantasyBut the review of The Hague recital was not good:
It is very difficult for a critic to review this piano recital. Lili Kraus is a pianist of the international stage. She is an artist and a very musical, charming woman whose playing is extremely spectacular. From the point of view of high international standards pianistically and musically, it was not good enough. She is very comfortable with the instrument and has musical spirit. Her technique, though, is weakly developed, especially for pearly finger playing. Her right hand is not firm and is by consequence overshadowed by the left hand. Her musical concepts are often extremely good, but the realization is often too many times disappointing.
With the chorus of negative reviews growing, Kraus sought refuge in the guise of a ten-day visit with her mother and half-sister in Budapest in 1948, taking Mandl, Ruth, and Michael along. Afterwards, Kraus and Mandl left for her concert tour in South Africa. There she made contact with the chairman of the music department at Stellenbosch University in Capetown, an encounter that led to Kraus's eighteen-month appointment in 1949-1950 to the piano faculty as artist-in-residence at the university. The escape from Europe and its demanding criticism was just the hiatus Kraus--and her playing--needed. Now she would have the time, under less watchful critical eyes, to restore her playing and battered confidence. Shortly after Lili and Mandl got to Capetown, Ruth and Michael joined them. Ruth, at Mandl's suggestion, took voice lessons; Michael studied the cello. The family moved to the suburbs, within walking distance of the university.
Kraus performed with amazing frequency during this period. Typical of her programs was her March 5, 1949, recital at Capetown's City Hall, where her program consisted of Mozart's C minor Fantasy and Sonata, Beethoven's Sonata Op. 109, Haydn's D major Sonata, Bartók's Hungarian Peasant Songs, and Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy. On September 28, in another recital in the same hall, she played Schubert's Moments Musicaux, op. 94, nos. 1-3, one of Haydn's E-flat major Sonatas, Schubert's Impromptus op. 142, no. 1, and op. 90, nos. 1-3, Haydn's F minor Variations, and Schubert's Posthumous A major Sonata. Her career was in robust health in South Africa, causing her to long even more for a triumphant return in more important venues. After soul-searching practice and rebuilding, she felt she had fully regained her keyboard prowess and was ready to reclaim her place among the world's musical elite.