1. William Primrose was a Scottish violist and teacher.
34 Facts About William Primrose
1. 2.
William Primrose performed with the London String Quartet from 1930 to 1935.
3.
William Primrose then joined the NBC Symphony Orchestra where he formed the Primrose Quartet.
4.
William Primrose performed in various countries around the world as a soloist throughout his career.
5.
William Primrose was born in Glasgow, Scotland to John Primrose and Margaret McInnis Primrose.
6.
William Primrose's father bought Primrose his first violin in 1908, when Primrose was only 4 years old.
7.
In 1919, William Primrose's family moved to London, and he began to study violin at the Guildhall School of Music in London on scholarship, where he would later be named Fellow.
8.
William Primrose graduated in 1924, having received its highest honor, a gold medal, although he admitted that he skipped some of his classes because the violin did not interest him.
9.
In London, on October 2,1928, William Primrose married Dorothy Friend, daughter of Arthur John Friend and Susanna Jane Luscombe.
10.
William Primrose moved from violin to viola in 1930 when he became the violist of the London String Quartet.
11.
William Primrose was joined in the group by Warwick Evans, John Pennington, and Thomas Petre.
12.
William Primrose was a violist for the orchestra, but he was never their principal violist.
13.
William Primrose played with the orchestra for four years until it was rumored that Toscanini would leave the Symphony in 1941.
14.
William Primrose boasted that "no quartet ever played that had the instrumental ability of my quartet".
15.
The William Primrose Quartet was short-lived, but recorded three sets of commercial 78s for RCA, along with a few unissued recordings.
16.
However, they stopped playing together in 1964 due to William Primrose's declining hearing and his increased absences due to his teaching career.
17.
William Primrose made his debut as a violin soloist in 1923; however his soloist career playing the viola didn't take off until 1941 when he started touring with Richard Crooks.
18.
William Primrose signed with Judson who furthered Primrose's soloist career.
19.
William Primrose was the soloist in the world premiere performance of the concerto in America, on 2 December 1949, with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and Antal Dorati conducting.
20.
William Primrose gave the European premiere at the Edinburgh Festival in 1950 with Sir John Barbirolli and The Halle orchestra.
21.
William Primrose was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1952, in recognition of his musical contributions.
22.
William Primrose taught in many countries across the world, including the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
23.
William Primrose taught at the University of Southern California from 1961 to 1965 with Jascha Heifetz.
24.
In 1971, William Primrose went to the Tokyo University of the Arts and the Toho Gakuen School of Music.
25.
William Primrose occasionally taught at Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, In Australia, Richard Tognetti was one of his students.
26.
William Primrose was a guest lecturer at Brigham Young University from 1979 to 1982.
27.
William Primrose wrote and contributed to several books on viola playing: Art and Practice of Scale Playing, Technique is Memory, Violin and Viola, and Playing the Viola.
28.
William Primrose had developed a hearing problem in 1946 which affected his ability to hear certain notes.
29.
William Primrose was later diagnosed with cancer in 1977, from which he died in Provo, Utah on 1 May 1982.
30.
William Primrose had noted that the viola had a wolf tone and did not project easily.
31.
The ex-William Primrose Amati is owned by Roberto Diaz, who is currently the president of the Curtis Institute of Music and recorded a CD of William Primrose's transcriptions for Naxos Records.
32.
In 1954, William Primrose purchased the 1697 Guarneri viola now known as the ex-William Primrose.
33.
In 1975 or 1978 William Primrose sold the Guarneri viola to Gary Vandosdale, a former student.
34.
William Primrose used the "MacDonald" Stradivari on loan during the 1940s.