Curtin & Alf wentfar beyond anything I expected. My viola is ...

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28
Left to right: Participants Lillian Tertis {widow ofLionel Tertis}, Yuri Bashmet, Paul
Neubauer, andJohn White.
(with one exception) ended by 2:30 in the
afternoon. There were lectures, master classes,
two 11 :30 A.M. recitals, viola ensemble sessions,
and a formal recital every evening
except Saturday.
The workshop was populated by interesting
and strong personalities. At 3:00 RM. John
Bethel, director of the competition and chairman
of the Mananan Trust (the local organization
promoting and sponsoring the congress)
welcomed all and opened the week-long meeting.
Next came the host chairman, John White
(chairman of the British branch of the International
Viola Society), distinguished violist,
educator, editor, who assured us that this congress
would have emphasis on the viola "with a
British theme." Shortly after, Tully Potter was
introduced, and he gave a talk about Watson
Forbes's career, illustrated with historical
recordings of Forbes's playing. I was impressed
by the simplicity of the sound equipment
used throughout the congress for musical
illustrations-it looked and sounded like a typical
"ghetto blaster." Apparently easy to operate,
the problem of finding the right spot on a
cassette tape was not completely solved by
every lecturer. The talk about Forbes, who is
now 85, was shared by Tully Potter and John
White, a former Forbes student.
Tully Potter did a lot of things at the
workshops. Not a player himself: he is accurately
described as the ultimate viola groupie.
A journalist by trade, he is on the editorial
staff of the Daily Mail, but not primarily as a
music editor. His knowledge of the viola, its
literature, and its players (worldwide) is encyclopedic
and astonishing. His wit was completely
engaging.
Yuri Bashmet gave the first evening
recital on Saturday, August 27. He and Mikhail
Muntian played the Shostakovich Sonata,
which Muntian had premiered with Feodor
Druzhinin, for whom the sonata was written.
Bashmet is a superb artist-sensitive, intimate,
flashy, stunning, impeccable. As an
encore, he played the "Russian Song" from
the opera Mavra by Stravinsky.
Sunday, August 28, Roger Chase and
Sophia Rahman presented a late morning
recital that gave new meaning to the term viola
virtuoso. Mr. Chase teaches at the Guildhall
School of Music and Drama in London, but
his resume shows that he has done a great
deal of recording. He played two of the most
challenging pieces in the viola literature, the
Bach Fantasia Chromatica in the Kodaly transcription
and the Sonata per Grand Viola by
Paganini, plus two 20th-century works. His