This week marked the 37th anniversary of the death of Lionel Tertis of Marryat Road, Wimbledon, said to have been the greatest viola player of the 20th century.

Tertis, who died age 98, is commemorated by the triennial Lionel Tertis International Viola Festival & Competition, known throughout the musical world and involving young players of any nationality aged under 30.

Participants from more than 30 countries took part last time and the next one, the 11th, will be held at the Erin Arts Centre on the Isle of Man from 16-23 March 2013.

Lionel Tertis was born in 1876 in West Hartlepool. By the time that he and his professional cellist wife Lillian moved into Flat One at 42 Marryat Road in 1961, he had been playing the viola for around 66 years. He continued to perform in public until 1963 and then gave private recitals in the garden.

Tertis is said to have revolutionised the viola as a solo instrument. Although he studied piano at Trinity College, London, before switching to the violin at Leipzig Conservatoire, he took up the viola at the age of 19 to play in a string quartet.

In 1901 he became Professor of viola at the Royal Academy of Music and was later director of the ensemble class there from 1924-29, teaching many distinguished players.

As well as playing with various orchestras and string quartets and touring Europe and the US as a soloist, Tertis arranged and edited many works for the viola, including the Elgar Cello Concerto, Delius violin sonatas and Brahms clarinet sonatas.

He composed some works himself and also convinced William Walton to write an impressive viola concerto.

It was this that attracted the attention of many other great composers including Vaughan-Williams, Britten, Bartók, and Shostakovich. Tertis gave first performances of many works for the viola that had been written especially for him. He was awarded the CBE in 1950.

Back in 1924 he had bought a 1727 vintage Montagnana instrument from a Paris dealer although it was said to be in an unplayable condition, without bridge, strings, fingerboard or case. It was also very large and it was only possible to bring it back to London by his then wife wrapping it in her waterproof coat to get it across the Channel. The large viola provided an especially rich tone and Tertis went on to create his own model instrument to achieve the tonal advantages he sought.

The large house at 42 Marryat Road, Wimbledon, had been converted into three flats in 1953, and Tertis, Lillian, and her elderly mother moved into one of them when he was already in his mid eighties. After his death on 22 February 1975, Lillian, who was much younger, remained at the flat alone until 2005 when she moved into a nursing home in Kingston, dying there in 2009 aged 94.

The Lionel Tertis International Viola Festival & Competition was founded five years after the performer’s death in 1980 and in February 2007 the violist Roger Chase initiated The Tertis Project, a series of concerts of works that had been composed for him. Chase performs on the same vintage instrument that Lionel and Lillian brought from Paris in 1924.

The Wimbledon Society is working with the Wimbledon Guardian to ensure that you, the readers, can share the fascinating discoveries that continue to emerge about our local heritage.

For more information, visit wimbledonsociety.org.uk and www.wimbledonmuseum.org.uk.

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