JAVS Fall 1997

13

Private Donations to PNA R ecent months have wimessed the generous donations of three private music collections ro the Primrose lnrernational Viola Archive. Donors are the !are Roberr Becker of Freeporr, Illinois; Louise Goldberg, Rochester, New York; and Stephan Krayk, formerly of Santa Barbara, California, and now living in Devils Lake, orth Dakota. With these donations, PNA has been enriched by the addition of about 275 viola scores plus other interesting memorabilia. The Krayk collection, for instance, contains a framed manuscript in the hand ofCarl Flesch, Krayk's violin teacher, of a brief series of fundamental left-hand exercises, and some violin scores in this collection bear annotations by Flesch. PNA is grateful to those who see this as the appropriate reposirory for their personal libraries and who designate PNA a beneficiary of their estate.

RoBERT R. BECKER, OF FREEPORT, lr.uNois, played out most of his musical career as a violist and violinist in the western states- and all the way west: Hawaii. His college degrees were earned at Denver University and the University of Illinois. Advanced studies on the viola were taken with William Primrose and in counterpoint and orchestration with Darius Milhaud in Paris. Becker was principal violist of the Denver Symphony before World War II and also performed as a member of the Denver String Quarter. As a recitalist, he collaborated with Johanna Harris and also performed on the viola d'amore. He bad a lengthy career as head of strings ar the University ofWyoming and for a shorrer term taught at the University of Hawaii, where he parricipated as a chamber and symphony

musician in the island's various ensembles. Becker performed as a soloist during a number of summers at Yosemite ational Park. Over the course of his career, be served as conductor of community and college orchestras. His diverse professional interests led him to publish in journals such as The Instrumentalist. A manual of suing instrument repair tided You Fix 'em, written in collaboration with Melvin Schneider and Gilberr Waller, was published in 1954 by Scherl and Roth. Becker built suing instruments and donated a quartet to the University of Wyoming in 1997. Apart from music he enjoyed hobbies such as fishing and color photography.

LoUISE GOLDBERG HAS BEEN ACTIVE I THE VIOLA WORLD for many years. Her fust encounter with the vio la was at Interlochen, where, at the age of twelve, she responded ro a request for volunteers to play viola in the orchestra for a week. Although she enjoyed playing the violin, the viola caught her fancy and she remained with it, playing the viola for the entire eight weeks that summer and continuing when she returned home after camp. She studied first with George Perlman in Chicago, and then with Louise Rood at Smith College. She spent a year ar Juilliard, where she studied with Raphael Hillyer, and in the summer ·with William Primrose in Aspen. Upon entering the Eastman School of Music to pursue her doctorate in musicology, she studied with Francis Tursi. Goldberg has played viola in the Chicago Youth Orchestra and Chicago Civic Orchestra, and has been active in playing