Lionel Tertis's One-Man Victory

— í —_ -, ------ —------------------------------- 1 MUSIC MARTIN COOPER I THE NAMING of the bowed string instruments in com mon use today is confusing Lionel Tertis’s because it is illogical. All belong by origin to the viol family whose many members played a leading role in Euro pean music of the 15th, 16th one-man victory and 17th centuries and sur vived well into the 18th. Like many old families, the For a number of reasons, Concertante for violin and viola viols were eventually ousted by partly historical and partly con K. 364 and Berlioz’s “ Harold in a closely related cadet branch, nected with the actual register Italy ” the solo repertory of which rose during the 17t'h cen of the instrument, the viola and the viola was simply non-exis tury and had largely taken over the double bass have had the tent and Tertis was obliged the role of the older branch by most uneventful history of the to rely on arrangements of his 1750. This still flourishes today four. The viola’s part has cor own. He has over the yeais under the names of violin, viola, responded to that of the alto in made some forty of these, rang violoncello, and “ double bass,” a vocal quartet, essentially a ing from “The Londonderry whose names clearly reveal middle voice more devoted to Air” to concertos by Bach, their origin, however misleading filling in the harmony or even Mozart, Haydn, Delius and they may be in other respects. doubling the lines of its neigh Elgar and sonatas by Handel, Like many upstarts at the be bours above and below; and for Beethoven and Brahms. ginning of their careers, these this reason it has not been gener But his deepest concern was new'.mers were blamed by ally regarded as a solo instru to interest composers of his own admirers of the old family for ment with a right to be heard day in the viola and in this he the coarseness and blatancy of* on its own except in short succeeded, obtaining works their voices compared with the phrases or passages. specially written for him by Bax, well-bred reserve and unemphatic For this same reason it has Bliss, York Bower, Frank Bridge, articulation of the viols. These not attracted the interest of B. J. Dale and Cyril Scott, Holst, had been distinguished either by either composers or performers Walton and Vaughan Williams. the position in which the player and has often been played by In these memoirs he castigates held them (da braccio in the violinists either as a sideline or, himself for at first refusing to arm, da gamba between the in many cases, in order to obtain play Walton’s concerto, (and thus legs) or by Italian terminations orchestral work for. which they repeating the case of Paganini, denoting their size (-ino, -etta would not otherwise qualify. who refused to play “Harold in and -ello being diminutives and Berlioz called the viola “the Italy ” which he had com ■one suggesting largeness). Cinderella of the orchestra ” and missioned from Berlioz). But, as in all old families, the Sir Thomas Beecham once re In 1937 rheumatic trouble ramifications of both the older ferred to the viola and horn whioh, he felt, seriously affected and the newer branches were sections as “the depressed his playing, decided him to with widespread and complicated and areas ” of the orchestra. draw entirely from the concert are only well known nowadays platform but he returned to the to antiquarians comparable to The astonishing change in the concert platform during the war a musical College of Heralds. status of the viola during the and continued long after the last 60 years is entirely the work war was over, even though on a of a single player, Lionel Tertis, reduced scale. who is now in his 99th year and has just published a volume of The great interest of the last autobiography (“ My Viola and 30 years of his life, however, I ”), Paul Elek, £4. has been in designing and having built his own “ Tertis Model ” This volume greatly expands instrument, which has been in and also continues an earlier creasingly adopted by viola one, “ Cinderella ■ No More,” players all over the world. This whioh Mr Tertis published at in fact forms the last chapter in the age of 71 in 1947. The new a life which has been totally and volume includes a more detailed unremittingly devoted to a account of his early life, when crusade whose success has no this sou of a Russian-born exact parallel in music history. synagogue minister in west Segovia did similar work for the Sunderland supported himself guitar, it is true. Nor is it sur from the age of 13 by his music, prising that Mr Tertis ex earning his fees at Trinity Col presses a warm sympathy with lege of Music by playing on Gerald Moore, who undertook piers or in lunatic asylums, and with comparable success the moving on later to the Royal raising of the status of the Academy of Music. accompanist. He never liked the piano, None of these men has been which was his original instru discouraged by the difficulties ment, but he was 19 before he inherent in the inalterable facts took up the viola and discovered of the situation that they Xvere what he has ever since—eighty determined to improve: the years now—regarded as his mis poverty of the guitar and viola sion in life; the rescuing of his repertory and the essentially instrument from its apparently ancillary' nature of “ accompani irretrievably subordinate condi ment.” But each has raised tion. the standard of perform This he did first by achieving ance in his field of interest and a technique hitherto regarded as attracted into that field artists impossible; then by giving per of an entirely new calibre. formances whose artistic quality Mr Tertis’s standard, for him made immediate converts of self and for every other artist, is Nikisch, Kreisler, Casals and expressed in his foreword, which Rubenstejn. All this was behind is also a confession of his musi him by the age of 35, but the cal faith. “ The music we value next stage of his campaign of as the real thing,” he writes, its nature was more difficult, “ has to be struggled for with since it involved persuading all the power of the will, all pos composers to embark on creat sible concentration of the mind, ing a repertory for what was struggled for, missed and strug virtually a new instrumenti gled for agsfin.” No wondfer (ie Apart from Mozart> Sipíònía succeeded in his orusade..

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