William Primrose, after Lionel Tertis, is one of the
great names associated with the viola, an instrument long
regarded as an also-ran in the string family, overshadowed
by the technical virtuosity of its smaller violin sister
and the larger full-bodied sound of brothers cello and bass.
Primrose was not above a put-down himself, the title of his
autobiography, Cinderella no more, makes the point.
So does his epithet elevating the viola from its ‘dull dog
of the string family’ by making these transcriptions to ‘set
the cat among the pigeons’, in other words his viola-playing
colleagues. Choosing Paganini’s La Campanella as one
of them says it all and sets them the highest standards to
achieve.
This is a highly satisfying disc; Roberto Díaz is a
marvellous player, his accompanist Robert Koenig no less
so, and the wide variety of music makes it sheer pleasure
to listen to. The real hero of the cd, however, is the instrument,
Primrose’s own and since 2002 in Díaz’s possession. Made
about 1600 by Antonio and Hieronymus Amati, it was Primrose’s
primary instrument until about 1950, after which it was sold,
eventually gifted to the Philadelphia Orchestra, where Díaz
as its principal violist, bought it. According to Primrose
the instrument had poor powers of projection and a wolf tone
(regularly producing a whistle on one note), so it was fully
restored and found to have been repaired on various occasions
over the centuries. Apparently the new sound was virtually
unrecognisable and one wonders if Primrose ever heard its
full potential. He would surely have loved to have it still
in his possession today if he could have heard this disc,
but as Díaz’s father Manuel was a Primrose pupil, so this
lovely story seems to have come full circle with a happy
ending.
Of the playing, having praised it to the skies, there
is little to say, for most of the music will be familiar
to listeners. Primrose favoured works from the song repertoire
(five of them here), though he also had an especial love
for the music of South America where he toured with the
London String Quartet, the NBC Symphony Orchestra under
Toscanini,
and then as a soloist. As Primrose himself points out, ‘transcriptions
have been grist to the mill of instrumentalists and composers,
Bach a prime example of one who liberally helped himself
to the confections of his contemporaries. In my own case
I have never had an original thought in my head in the matter
of musical composition, while I have flattered myself that
I am a likely lad when it comes to picking other men’s brains’.
This seems another viola put down, for if they are not
the butt of jokes, they behave as those bearing huge inferiority
complexes. No more, for if they can play like this, they
should dispel any such thoughts.
Christopher Fifield
Roberto
Díaz (viola) 
