William Primrose, violist

A plaque is affixed to the second story of an apartment house at 18 Wilton Drive, Glasgow. It reads:

One of the greatest musicians of all time,
the viola player
William Primrose,
was born here, 1904

Guided by his father, an orchestral violinist, and tutored by a student of Sevčík and Joachim, the boy’s precocity was not lost on his elders. He suffered under Sevčík exercises, but later admitted they served his left hand facility well into late life. (The bow arm was a different matter and had to wait to be sculpted into the extraordinary mechanism it became under the influence of the great Ysaÿe.) The boy and young man became exposed to the greatest touring artists of the day in Scotland and, later, London. Casals and the young Heifetz made profound impressions, but it was Kreisler whose influence was the most indelible. The rhythmic élan and sound became profiles of Primrose’s own performances. His early recordings as a violinist attest to his brilliance, witness the Rondo capriccioso of Saint-Saëns.

But there was a dormant yearning since childhood for that curiosity in his father’s cupboard, a viola. Not until his Belgian master’s encouragement to follow his predilection did the viola became a feature on Primrose’s horizon. This, despite familial disappointment and trenchant warning from a friend, “You will make the greatest mistake of your life!” Nevertheless, when the London String Quartet, on tour in America, summoned Primrose to fill in for their indisposed violist, he not only joined, he “burned his bridges,” and “walked the road to Damascus, saw the light, repented of past transgressions and switched to the viola.” Primrose, the great virtuoso of the solo viola, spent his most satisfying hours of music making in the small ensemble. Perhaps drawing him toward the collaborative art (and the viola) was the “intuitive English penchant for the center of the harmony,” as Menuhin expressed it. One can be transported by the recordings of Heifetz-Primrose-Feuermann in Mozart and Dóhnanyi, or Smetana and the Brahms B-flat by the Primrose Quartet, to be both touched and awed by such superb rapport.

Why did Primrose choose to open his recording career as a violist with Paganini caprices? “Youthful pride and ambition,” he said to impress others. And in this he did not fail. But the virtuosic show pieces were not the only colors on his artistic palette. The soft supplication of Songs my mother taught me can be moving, and the rhythmic suppleness found in Sarasateana, enchanting. His stylistic affinity captures the attentive adjudicator. Whether it is the melancholy of Brahms, the sprightliness of Boccherini, or the robustness of Bartók, the sensitive listener is persuaded to agree that stylistically speaking, things are about right.

Along the way Primrose felt a certain deficit in his musical upbringing. His experience in the orchestra was limited. Hearing rumored that an orchestra was being assembled especially for Toscanini, he wrote a letter of introduction, went to Milan and presented himself at the maestro’s apartment for an audition. Primrose was hired and spent four years on the first desk of the NBC Symphony in New York. At the close of this tenure, he became engaged in another facet of his career, teaching at the Curtis Institute. At this time, when his solo and recording engagements were blossoming, he admitted he wasn’t that fascinated in teaching, or prepared to do so. In fact, he admitted he didn’t know how his students learned anything from him. However, de Pasquale and Tuttle would strongly disagree, two who went on to become wonderfully gifted violists and teachers themselves. As Primrose gradually withdrew from the stage, he devoted himself more to teaching at various institutions. In his last years he set down in book form a lengthy exposition on the principles and practice of Playing the Viola. His students, and in turn, their students carry on the Primrose legacy.

Primrose was not a “hot-house” musician, rather a versatile human being. His respect and use of the English language came about in early stages reading Dickens and Thackeray and other masters of elevated literature. He was an inveterate reader which allowed him to converse with ease on subjects as diverse as the plays of Oscar Wilde or sumo wrestling. His basic manner was often reserved, that of a British gentleman. He expressed himself as “loving this world and all that is good in it and of good report… the glory of music and pictures and poetry and gracious prose.”

Is the Primrose ideal in viola performance attainable? Primrose was a rare combination of talents, born and nourished in a different age that has now passed us by. Still, more than ever aspiring violists strive toward that elusive zenith which seems to be touched with a bit of magic or mystery. May the inspiration continue.

— David Dalton