JAVS Summer 1989

27

practicing? How's his bow arm? Is the

member of our board for many years. Additionally he was the second recipient, (the first being William Primrose) of an honorary life membership in the International Viola I began playing viola at the age of eight years. I remember, my parents a year or so after I began, visiting some friends for dinner one evening. The next morning at breakfast my mother said to me, "Alan, you should have been at dinner last night. We met a very famous My first thought was, well, yes, I might have preferred being invited to a nice dinner than staying home with a boring babysitter. However, I responded by asking the violist's name. My mother I thought for a moment, drawing on my extensive background and expertise as a one-year violist and commented, "No, don't know him!" My father, unwilling to let this situation remain as such, invited Paul shortly thereafter to our home for dinner and insisted I play for him as after dinner entertainment. Here was born a relationship that lasted over thirty years. A number of years later, during my care~r with the L.A. Philharmonic, I received a call from the lady at whose home my parents had first met Paul. Society. viola player." answered, "Paul Doktor."

vibrato O.K.?"

It was truly great fun for me when, after receiving similar calls for years, I sent "little Paul" off to Juilliard to study with his godfather, and I had the opportunity to phone Paul Doktor periodically and ask, "So Paul, how's little Paulie doing? Are you sure he is practicing? How's his bow arm? Is the Paul Doktor is survived by all the living violists of the world, and to us he bequeaths the legacy of the viola and all the responsibilities that go with it. vibrato O.K.?"

r

l ~

RECALLING PAUL DOKTOR

by

Paul Neubauer

Editor's Note: Paul Neubauer, godson and close friend of Paul Doktor, on tour as principal violist of the New York Philharmonic, telephoned these remarks

to JAVS.

Paul Doktor was born 1919 in Vienna and died at age seventy of a heart attack while undergoing medical tests at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, New York City, Wednesday morning, 21 June 1989. He started his professional career as a violist when he joined the

She began, "You know, Alan, twelve Busch Quartet in 1938 as second violist years ago my youngest son was born and to his father Karl when the quartet .... I named him for my dear friend Paul would perform string quintets. In 1942 Doktor. I said that some day I hoped he he became the first violist to win the would become the greatest violist. Well, Geneva Competition, and by unanimous if he is going to achieve that goal it's vote. He came to the U.S.A. in 1947 and time we got started. Would you be made his American debut in the Library willing to teach him?" of Congress the following year. In 1952 Paul became an American citizen. I agreed, and shortly thereafter, Mr. He recorded and performed of the New York String Sextet, the Rococo Ensemble, and the Paul Doktor It wasn't long before the calls from String Trio, and performed frequently New York began. Paul Doktor would with Yaltah Menuhin. He recorded for phone and ask, "So, Alan, how's little Telefunken, Odyssey, Westminster, Paulie doing? Are you sure he is Mirrosonic, and Louisville. and Mrs. Neubauer brought their son Paul to me for what became the first of extensively as a soloist and was founder years of viola lessons.