Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Tertis Family
- 2 Early Career
- 3 The Great War
- 4 The Chamber Music Players
- 5 American Tours
- 6 Return to the Royal Academy of Music
- 7 The Elgar and Walton Concertos
- 8 The BBC Orchestra, Delius, Bax and Vaughan Williams
- 9 A Shock Retirement
- 10 The Richardson–Tertis Viola
- 11 The Second World War
- 12 Promoting the Tertis Model Viola
- 13 Return to America and Eightieth Birthday Celebrations
- 14 Second Marriage and Last Appearance
- 15 TV Profile and Ninetieth Birthday
- 16 Final Years
- Notes
- Appendix 1 Tertis’s Violas
- Appendix 2 The Tertis Model Viola
- Appendix 3 Tertis’s Writings and Talks
- Appendix 4 Tertis’s BBC Appearances
- Appendix 5 Tertis’s Honours
- Appendix 6 Music with Tertis Connections
- Appendix 7 The Tertis Bequest
- Appendix 8 The Tertis Legacy
- Discography
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - The BBC Orchestra, Delius, Bax and Vaughan Williams
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Tertis Family
- 2 Early Career
- 3 The Great War
- 4 The Chamber Music Players
- 5 American Tours
- 6 Return to the Royal Academy of Music
- 7 The Elgar and Walton Concertos
- 8 The BBC Orchestra, Delius, Bax and Vaughan Williams
- 9 A Shock Retirement
- 10 The Richardson–Tertis Viola
- 11 The Second World War
- 12 Promoting the Tertis Model Viola
- 13 Return to America and Eightieth Birthday Celebrations
- 14 Second Marriage and Last Appearance
- 15 TV Profile and Ninetieth Birthday
- 16 Final Years
- Notes
- Appendix 1 Tertis’s Violas
- Appendix 2 The Tertis Model Viola
- Appendix 3 Tertis’s Writings and Talks
- Appendix 4 Tertis’s BBC Appearances
- Appendix 5 Tertis’s Honours
- Appendix 6 Music with Tertis Connections
- Appendix 7 The Tertis Bequest
- Appendix 8 The Tertis Legacy
- Discography
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The new BBC orchestra – compositions by Delius, Bax, Bliss and RVW – Casals
In the summer of 1929 Lionel Tertis and Albert Sammons were involved in a major undertaking. The BBC had decided to form its own symphony orchestra. The string principals were appointed individually, but auditions for rank and file players were held in London and the regions between May and the autumn. Sammons and Tertis heard more than 1,000 auditions to select the sixty-strong string section of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. To lick the players into shape, the orchestra's founding conductor, Adrian Boult, adopted Tertis's suggestion of separate sectional rehearsals.
Women had played for years in Sir Henry Wood's orchestra at Queen's Hall, and some were included on occasions in the orchestra at Royal Philharmonic Society concerts. During this period there was also the London-based British Women's Symphony Orchestra. Dame Ethel Smyth was very critical of the choice of players for the newly formed BBC Symphony Orchestra and wrote to the Daily Mail on at least two occasions about this matter. Tertis replied in a letter that appeared in the Daily Mail on 9 July 1929:
Sir, – my name having appeared twice recently in The Daily Mail (in connection with the new BBC Orchestra) with what I might mildly call an unjust inference, I shall be greatly obliged if you will allow me space to refute the suggestions made.
Now, if an official (as stated by Dame Ethel Smyth) told ‘Musician’ that ‘Sammons and Tertis can at once recognise the sex of a concealed player’, I, for one, did not know I possessed this peculiar X-ray faculty. Neither was I ‘safely guided’ by any question or answer.
In adjudicating for the new BBC Orchestra I had no interest whatever as to whether the candidates were male or female. My sole and unbiassed purpose was to judge of their efficiency.
As a matter of fact I was, with regret, unable to pass a single candidate I heard (and in most cases I did not know their sex). Their performances were, unfortunately, all below the standard required for a first-rate orchestra.
The suggestion that the candidates were made fools of is childish. I undertook the auditions with a full sense of the responsibility laid upon me, and no indication was at any time given to me that only one sex would be acceptable.
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- Lionel TertisThe First Great Virtuoso of the Viola, pp. 111 - 135Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006