William Primrose was a truly outstanding viola player of the twentieth Century. (That is not an oxymoron, no matter what anybody says). He was born on this day in 1903. His first lessons were with his father. He later studied violin with Eugene Ysaye, who, it is said, encouraged him to give up the violin in favor of the viola. Nobody knows why and I haven't done enough research to find out. There is never a good enough reason to leave the violin for the viola but there you have it. Anyway, "what's done cannot be undone." He played in the London String Quartet until 1935. In 1937, he joined the NBC Symphony Orchestra but left after he heard that Toscanini would be quitting the conductor's post in 1941. He was the first violist to record Harold In Italy, Berlioz's famous viola concerto (or tone poem or fantasie or whatever it is). That was in 1946. This is the same piece Paganini refused to play because it was not dazzling enough, though that is just a rumor. Who really knows? Primrose also premiered Bartok's Viola Concerto (1949). He was so technically brilliant that he could play Paganini's violin caprices on the viola - no small accomplishment. He played an Amati viola now owned by the Philadelphia Orchestra's principal violist, Roberto Diaz. Later in his life, he was a distinguished teacher and wrote several method books. My violin teacher had a copy of one of them titled Technique is Memory. As far as I know - and I really don't know all that much - he is the only violist in history to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Posts
