JAVS Summer 1998

20

advantage of a father or grandfather who had a violin shop where I could work. I was headed for Stockholm to work in the violin shop of Mr. Gardner, a weU-known Swedish

Pearce, was char he gave me enough money to get our of Germany, to rake care of all the debcs I had created over the years to keep alive and to keep going. (Later, I paid him back $1500.) I had enough money to get myself a ticker on the Hameatic to come over to Amer ica, which is exactly what I did. I arrived in Salt Lake City on 6 June 1960. Dalton: The Pearce Music Company, as I recal l it from almost forty years' distance, was not a typical violin shop. Rather, it was a music suppl y center, with band instru ments, sheer music, music supplies , and everything the school musician would need. The "violin shop" was tucked away in the back. Prier: That's right. At the time, besides myself and Aschauer, there was Louis, Wes Pearce's son, as well as Ray Miller working in string instruments . I wo rked for Pearce for five years. Interestingly, the word was that when Pearce invited an employee to breakfast, ir was usually for the purpose of letting you go, firing you, downsizing, as we now say. He in vited me to breakfast, and I thought this was the end. Instead, he gave me a raise. He was a very good man , I thought. Maurice Abra vanel , then the music director of rhe Utah Symphony, came into the shop occasionally and for some reason or other seemed to take a lilcing to me. Why did he like me? Maybe because I had done work on the instruments of some of the Utah Symphony players. Abra vanel needed one more violinist, so I was told by the orchestra manager to come and audi tion. Bur I said that I hadn't prepared any thing. He told me to come as I was, show up and just play! There were fi ve other guys standing around waiting their turn , all bass players. I believe that by the time my turn came up, the committee was so tired of hear ing "oink-oinks" from bass players, a violin tone was such a relief that they hired me on the spot. I was with the Utah Symphony for two years and went on their tours to Greece, Spain, and South America as their "doctor," as Abravanel pur it. It was probably a good thing, because a lor of violins got "sick" on those tours.

maker. However, I ended up in Srurrgan at the respected establishment of Walter Ham mer, where I stayed for eight months. There were six other guys sitting on the bench there, and I thought I had berrer find somewhere else to go.

Ticket to America

Dalton: About here, I assume, came an impe tus to go to America.

Prier: Indirectly. I received a phone caU from the director of rhe Mittenwald school, Leo Aschauer, under whom I had done most of my work, who asked, "Why don't you come work for me?" I said, "Bur Gardner wants me to come soon to Sweden. Where should I go? Where is the best place?" Then Leo suggested I get in touch with his son Ludwig Aschauer, who was working in Salt Lake City, Utah, of al l places. So I wrote his employer, Wesley Pearce, of rhe Pearce Music Company bur d idn't hear anything for three weeks. I was gerring nervous. Then ir arrived: a lerrer plus rwo and one-half thousand U.S. dollars in cash! I had never seen so much money in my life. BasicaUy everything was taken care of for my rrip to America. I went to Munich to fill our thousands of immigration forms, ir seemed, and I left soon after that. I had a contractual agreemenr with Pearce, verified through Ludwig Aschauer, that I would have a job sitting two and a half feet away from Aschauer on rhe bench . What was so nice about aU of this, and so noble about Wesley