JAVS Fall 2011

musician and a great man. I will always cherish these insights and will always be able to draw from them to inspire my own playing and creativity.” Carrie is now pursuing a master’s degree in viola per formance at the university of Maryland. She feels that her work in PIVA prepared her for continuing in viola performance because of the inspiration she has drawn from the violists whose materials she worked with. She says, “I believe that knowing our predecessors well will truly enable us to carry on their legacy. I don’t want to be blindly playing scales and exercises for the rest of my life, just trying to ‘get better’ at the viola. I want to know what I’m shooting for, who I’m striving to emu late. I want to have a vast knowledge of the repertoire and the artists that came before me. And I want to be able to inspire my students with that kind of knowl edge. On the more practical side, working in the archive gave me some pretty mean research skills. I’m faster than anybody in my program at finding materi als pertaining to whatever research I may be conduct ing! I was surprised when my current teacher men tioned that Primrose studied with ysaÿe and it was news to most of the people in my studio. Does that make my technique any better than my peers? Of course not. But it does help me pay attention when I hear one of ysaÿe’s works for violin, or hear some tid bit of information about his teaching. PIVA taught me to value my instrument’s history. Knowing the archive well, its treasures, and how to access them is also something I value. What a great resource PIVA is!” Charles Martin is a violist who has chosen to follow engineering as a profession, but that doesn’t mean he loves the instrument any less. Charles worked in the archive for four years, from 2004–2008. he cataloged and shelved viola materials, assisted visiting violists, and helped students to find the music they were look ing for. under the direction of David Dalton, Charles created a digital record of all the photos of Primrose on the display boards and of all Dwight Pounds’s photos that line the walls of the archive. On a practi cal note, Charles “watered” the violas on display to keep the humidity right.

music has shaped the way I approach the capabilities and limitations of my chosen instrument.”

Not all of the students who are employed by PIVA are violists. Scott Lesser is a cellist who worked in the archive from 2003–2007. Scott worked on organizing a donation of quartets the archive received, scanned donated materials, and assigned call numbers to newly bound scores. he was responsible for the design and maintenance of the PIVA website, which can still be seen at http://music.lib.byu.edu/PIVA/. Scott was also an avid patron of the archive as well, searching the repertoire with Leslie for viola/cello duos. Scott is now in graduate school at The Boston Conservatory, is a freelance cellist in the Boston/New England area, and is a member of five regional orches tras. PIVA gave Scott an appreciation for the resources in a really good research collection. Since he collects “music stuff ” (as he calls it), Scott was impressed by the care given to materials in PIVA and plans to donate his collection to a library someday. Scott thinks he is a better cellist due to his PIVA experi ence, since he now thinks of music in a historical and biographical context, which helps inform musical per formance. he says, “Whenever I approach a new piece, I want to find all the available information about the creation, premiere, dedicatee, etc. That makes the music more satisfying to learn and share with an audience.” Caroline Maxwell Castleton (Carrie) became involved with PIVA in 2003, when she received an ORCA grant to organize the harold Coletta papers, which Mary Coletta had donated to PIVA. Carrie felt that she really learned to know and appreciate Coletta’s life and work. her next major project was a continuation of Leslie’s work with the William Primrose letters. Reading them, Carrie says “was like taking a glimpse into this musician’s humanity: his value of friendship, his character traits, his flaws, his theories about viola technique and performance, his admiration of other musicians, his successes, his humor and wit, his challenges, his failings, his inter ests in many fields, his religious questions, his teach ing philosophies. Woven together, all of this gave me a deeper understanding of what makes both a great

Charles says, “When I think about the archive’s impact on my life, I simply think of inspiration. Part

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