As a boy growing up in South Africa, I had relatively few chances to hear string playing of quality; and it was through recordings by William Primrose and Rudolf Barshai (especially the latter's interpretation of Mozart's Sinfonia concertante with Menuhin) that I came to love the sound of the viola. Not long after I returned to Britain in 1966, an LP of Lionel Tertis was issued. I had never come across his name and might not have bothered to buy the record, had I not – as so often happens – heard him mentioned in a totally different connection. Whoever this Tertis was, he was clearly someone of consequence, so I invested in the LP and discovered his performance of the Sinfonia concertante with Sammons, as well as some short pieces and transcriptions.

What I heard on those old recordings from the 1920s and early 1930s was an amazing tone, which I now know was unlike anything before or since. It had the sort of warmth and opulence that only the very greatest artists can draw from a violin, viola or cello; and it was deployed with an instinctive command of legato and portamento. In the intervening years I have heard virtually all Tertis's records, and the best of them still have the capacity to astonish me. I envy those for whom this great artist's playing is a pleasure still to come. All Tertis's recordings have now been issued in two boxes of compact discs, so he may no longer be a cult figure confined to violists and string music enthusiasts.

His achievement was exceptional. Beginning at an age which nowadays would be thought too old to learn a stringed instrument, Tertis took the hitherto unsung viola and raised it, by his endeavours alone, to solo status. He still reigns as one of only three British string players to have made a worldwide reputation, the others being Primrose and Jacqueline du Pre. We ought to be proud of him and now, thanks to the researches of John White, we can base that pride on a solid body of fact. Tertis's memoirs were written when he had reached an advanced age and could no longer recall his own exploits accurately. John White, who as a member of the Alberni Quartet had a coaching session with Tertis, has uncovered an extraordinary mass of material.