William Primrose (left) and Lionel Tertis (right)

After years of being established as the butt of musicians’ jokes, the viola has finally come into its own. Go back half a century or so and the idea of a programme being built around the instrument would have seemed a little outlandish, but now, have the likes of Lawrence Power direct a performance from the viola – as he does in Baroque Threads, Contemporary Colours (22-24 April) – and no-one bats an eyelid. Rewind the clock another half-century, however, and the idea was barely off the starting blocks.

Most other orchestral instruments were recognised for their solo potential long before the 20th century, even if the piano, violin and cello came to dominate the concerto repertoire during the Romantic era (see our series on the concerto for more details). The viola, saddled with an unjust reputation of being the preserve of failed violinists, seemed to lag some distance behind, but was slowly gaining ground in other repertoire: a favourite of Mozart’s, it was particularly appreciated in chamber music by the German Romantics. Brahms’ String Sextets placed it on an even keel with the violin and cello (being written for pairs of each instrument), so the time was ripe for someone to take its potential to a new level.

Enter Lionel Tertis. A native of Hartlepool, he was originally a pianist and violinist but took up the viola in the late 1890s while studying at the Royal Academy of Music, where he became Professor of Viola as the new century dawned. His students and colleagues were soon penning new repertoire for the instrument, and it is to his efforts that we owe music from an entire generation of English composers, among whom Holst and Vaughan Williams are the best known. He retired from performance in 1937 to devote himself to teaching, also finding the time to write books including Cinderella No More (1953), the title of which alone shows how much the viola’s standing had improved in his lifetime.

A quarter-century after Tertis stepped into the limelight, William Primrose’s career started along similar lines, moving to study the violin in London during his teens – with the difference that he came from Glasgow and enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music. It was the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, during a later period of study in mainland Europe, who encouraged the young Primrose to switch instruments. As a professional violist, his primary focus was chamber music, often in the company of other illustrious soloists, but his solo career took off in the 1940s.

Primrose had made the United States his home by this point, where his major contributions to furthering the recognition of the viola included recording Berlioz’ Harold in Italy no fewer than five times in the space of two decades, during which time he also commissioned Bartók to write his Viola Concerto, one of the composer’s very last works. He went on to give its European premiere at the 1950 Edinburgh International Festival, the same year as Britten (a violist himself) wrote his Lachrymae for him.

Fast forward to today and it’s clear these two pioneers have had an enormous impact on the way we view their instrument today. Just as the 1940s saw many music lovers become aware of the alto voice thanks to Kathleen Ferrier, so the viola has gained a devoted following through the efforts of Tertis and Primrose. If it has stopped short of achieving mainstream popularity, this ensures its ability to convert many an unsuspecting concert-goer – an enviable position indeed.