My Thesis
Introduction:
FROM MANUSCRIPT TO PUBLICATION: ASPECTS OF LIONEL TERTIS' STYLE OF VIOLA PLAYING AS REFLECTED IN HIS 1936 EDITION OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS' SUITE FOR VIOLA AND ORCHESTRA
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Thesis (html)
Thesis (pdf)
Differences Table
Ralph Vaughan Williams and Lionel Tertis:
a collaboration of two Great Britons, two great artists, of the 20th Century.
I fell in love with the music of Vaughan Williams during my first year as a viola student at the Royal College of Music in London. On the walls of the concert hall of this famous college hang many paintings of the many great musicians who studied there. One of these is a very large painting of Vaughan Williams in his later years.
I was part of the chorus that sang A Sea Symphony in this hall – a work that was inspired by, and contains some of the poems of, Walt Whitman. The work is grand and awe inspiring. Apparently the composer himself almost ‘fell’ from the podium when he conducted this work in its first rehearsal – such was the power of the composition he had penned.
Vaughan Williams himself was a viola player “an instrument he knew well and loved” – to quote his wife Ursula Vaughan Williams, however as his family did not regard the viola as an instrument worthy of being played, he turned his attention to the organ. Unable to set aside his love for the viola, it was only a matter of time before he would come into contact with the most famous viola player of the 20th Century, Lionel Tertis.
Tertis had decided to champion the viola as a solo instrument from very early in the 20th Century. He not only commissioned works from many composers, he also inspired many to write works specifically for him. In my quest to find a thesis topic that dealt with the music of Vaughan Williams, I found the piece which proved to be the link between
Ralph Vaughan Williams and Lionel Tertis.
This was the Suite for Viola and Orchestra, written by Vaughan Williams in 1934 for Lionel Tertis. In my research I managed to unearth many interesting artifacts dealing with the creation and publication of the work – letters that verified Tertis as editor and two copies of the Suite personally marked by Tertis.
My biggest discovery revealed that a great many changes had been made between the manuscript and the published edition of 1936. I was convinced that Tertis had made these changes. Why had he done so? The information revealed in my thesis, I believe, reveals the collaboration between these two great artists.
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