2024 Primrose International Viola Competition & American Viola Society Festival Program Book

2024 Primrose International Viola Competition About the Competition

of Brahms, the sprightliness of Boccherini, or the robustness of Bartók, the sensitive listener is persuaded to agree that stylistically speaking, things are about right. Along the way Primrose felt a certain deficit in his musical upbringing. His experience in the orchestra was limited. Hearing rumors that an orchestra was being assembled especially for Toscanini, he wrote a letter of introduction, went to Milan and presented himself at the maestro’s apartment for an audition. Primrose was hired and spent four years on the first desk of the NBC Symphony in New York. At the close of this tenure, he became engaged in another facet of his career, teaching at the Curtis Institute. At this time, when his solo and recording engagements were blossoming, he admitted he wasn’t that fascinated by teaching, or prepared to do so. In fact, he admitted he didn’t know how his students learned anything from him. However, Joseph de Pasquale and Karen Tuttle would strongly disagree, the two went on to become wonderfully gifted violists and teachers themselves. As Primrose gradually withdrew from the stage, he devoted himself more to teaching at various institutions. In his last years he set down in book form a lengthy exposition on the principles and practice of Playing the Viola. His students, and in turn, their students carry on the Primrose legacy. Primrose was not a “hot- house” musician, but rather a versatile human being. His respect and use of the English language came about in early stages reading Dickens and Thackeray and other masters of elevated literature. He was an inveterate reader which allowed him to converse with ease on subjects as diverse as the plays of Oscar Wilde or sumo wrestling. His basic manner was often reserved, that of a British gentleman. He expressed himself as “loving this world and all that is good in it and of good report… the glory of music and pictures and poetry and gracious prose.” Is the Primrose ideal in viola performance attainable? Primrose was a rare combination of talents, born and nourished in a different age that has now passed us by. Still, more than ever aspiring violists strive toward that elusive zenith which seems to be touched with a bit of magic or mystery. May the inspiration continue. — David Dalton

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