JAVS Fall 1995

44

JH: It's not really dead, you know; it is dormant, but very much alive, much like memorized or even recorded music. At the proper time it will break forth into a new existence. As for beauty, the tree is quite beautiful even now-perhaps more beautiful in some respects than in summer in that its form is fully revealed in every detail. Start with the trunk and follow the tree through one branch to the buds on its smallest stems. Now consider the whole-the trunk as it divides and splits, the branches and stems as they spread in all directions from the center, and do not forget the substantial portion of the tree under the ground which we cannot see. No two branch systems are alike, just as no two trees are alike. They are all different but stem from the same source and comprise one whole. music, the tree also has rhythm, motion and color, and its surround ings create an accompaniment of sorts. Music is much like this tree in the fact that it too has form and design, that instruments give it color, that it twists and turns on its journey, that the whole comprises a mass of highly different but interrelated themes, embellishments, ostinati and other accompanying melodic and rhythmic pat terns. Remember this as you prepare this con certo, then you will realize why the theme is differently in the develop ment and cadenza than in the exposition and how to make adjustments for each. Now, back to Mozart. . . . Notes 1. Primrose's stated aversion to violin composi tions being transposed for viola performance derived more from his absolute pitch than the fact that they were written for violin. "Having absolute

pitch, it disturbs me to hear the chaconne in D minor, for example, played in G minor. Without absolute pitch, it wouldn't matter, probably. . . . It unsettles me to hear the piece a fifth down" (Dalton: Playing the Viola: Conversations with William Primrose [Oxford], p. 186). He also voiced acoustical concerns, that passages generic to the violin sometimes had a tendency to "sound dull on the D and G strings" when transposed down a fifth and on viola. Violin litera ture and technique had their proper influence on the viola in Primrose's mind, however. He, like Walter Trampler, preferred prospective viola stu dents who had "come via the violin with a left-hand technique . . . in reasonably good condition" (Dalton, p. 5). 2. Primrose's position on transcriptions, although strong, certainly was not rigid: to the delight of thousands he liberally availed himself of such treasures as the Paganini La Campanella, Preludium and Allegro, i.ieoesiaa. and others with no apparent offense to his sense of tonality. It is worth remembering that Primrose chronologically was a violinist before assuming the mantle of therefore major concert violin repertoire, much of which he doubtless played or studied, most likely was fixed in his mind early in his career. Also, as by Willianl Goodwin and others, Primrose's lifelong desire to expand viola repertoire may have influenced his assiduous avoidance of major violin concerti and other orchestral works transcribed for the viola as much as his renowned sense of pitch. Dwight Pounds's tribute to William Primrose may be seen in ]AVS Vol. 8, No.3, p. Concerto (Kochel No. 216), Mozart's Violin Concerto in G Major, transcribed by Lillian Fuchs, was published in 1947 for viola and piano by M. Witmark & Sons, New York, #20604-47. It is currently available Irorn International Music Company, #2681.

Dwight Pounds is a teacher of viola at \\'Iestern Kentucky University. As a graduate student at Indiana University he studied with William Primrose. Pounds has been a long-time board member ofthe AVS and contributor to JAVS. He is the author of The American Viola Society: A History and Reference.