A career in music – early days as soloist, orchestral principal, chamber musician, teacher – Kreisler's influence – new works

As a new century dawned, Lionel Tertis was probably one of the finest violists in the world, although he still had some way to go before he made the public aware of his quality. At home his only rival was Alfred Hobday, who was almost seven years older and a member of an outstanding musical family – his wife Ethel, nee Sharpe, was a splendid pianist who had been part of Brahms's circle in Vienna, while his younger brother Claude was a superb exponent of the double bass. It is difficult to judge Alfred Hobday's playing, because his only recordings were made as second violist in ensembles, but it would seem that he played essentially in the nineteenth-century fashion, making very little use of vibrato. Behind his back his colleagues referred to him as ‘Cold Mutton’ – perhaps his style contributed to the canard which was common currency among the orchestral musicians of those days that the three coldest things one could encounter were a gravestone, a woman's feet in bed and a viola solo.

Abroad, Tertis's major rival was the Bohemian player Oskar Nedbal, almost three years his senior and another player schooled in the nineteenth-century tradition. A founder member of the celebrated Bohemian Quartet in 1892, Nedbal caused a sensation all over Europe with his playing of the viola solo at the start of Smetana's E minor Quartet, ‘From My Life’. One of those who was smitten was Arnold Bax, who first heard the Bohemians on their début tour of Britain in 1897. But Nedbal, a gigantic man, earned his sobriquet ‘King Viola’ by more than quartet playing: in his repertoire he had such staples as Mozart's Sinfonia concertante, Berlioz's Harold in Italy and the Rubinstein Sonata. And the viola was only one facet of his busy musical life. A pupil of Dvořak, he was a superb composer of light music. He was also a great conductor, and as conductor of the Czech Philharmonic was largely responsible for the popularity of the ‘New World’ Symphony. As with Hobday, it is difficult to make any definitive judgement about Nedbal's playing, because he left only two recordings and never had the opportunity to become thoroughly accustomed to the tricky business of making acoustic discs.