Jennifer Call and Dr. Claudine Bigelow, Fine Arts and Communication

This project was designed to create an index to the over 5,000 letters of the violist William Primrose that are held in the Primrose International Viola Archive (PIVA) at Brigham Young University. This index will be an aid to violists or others interested in researching aspects of the life and career of William Primrose through his letter. After my work on the index it is over halfway completed. As it is with many archival projects, this was a great task for one undergraduate. Dr. Claudine Bigelow, my advisor and viola professor, desired that the catalog include the date, author, and a short summary of every letter. This required me to read every letter, many handwritten and multiple pages. My goal was to catalog all 5,000 letters, but after 9 months and over 300 hours of working on the project I had read about 2,000 letters, or four out of the ten boxes. Two others students have since been hired by the library to finish the project over the course of this summer.

My work on the index has reached many levels. The majority of my work was published in June 2006 as an honors thesis at Brigham Young University. In the first chapter I give an introduction and a review of the literature which cite many other sources helpful to researching Primrose. The remaining chapters are the actual annotations of the personal correspondence of Primrose. These chapters are organized by how the letters were then catalogued, by the folder and box.

On June 7-11th I assisted Dr. Bigelow in presenting my work at the International Viola Congress in Montreal, Canada. I registered for a table at the Congress and set up a display that contained pictures of William Primrose and three notebooks for congress attendees to peruse (see Figure 1). The left notebook contains a printed version of the index, the middle contains samples of the letters that I gathered and copied, and the last contains pictures and information on William Primrose and the Archive.

At the Viola Congress I also gave a ten-minute presentation of the index as part of Dr. Bigelow’s lecture on PIVA. My presentation was organized on PowerPoint with quotes from Primrose and the letters (see Figure 2). The audience consisted of violists of all ages and expertise. The most rewarding part was that afterwards many approached me with questions about the index, and since then the library had received many research requests for information from the letters.

In my last week of the project I worked with the two other students in the library to reorganize the letters and index, according to the date which each letter was written. Previously the letters were put into folders without any organization. This new format will make it easier to keep track of each letter. Then the next step will be to write on each letter the box, folder, and letter number. Our goal is also to put it online as part of the PIVA website. Then violists worldwide will be able to search the index for the letter they seek. I am grateful for those that made it possible for me to work on this project and for those continuing it after me.

After reading these letters and organizing the index, I have gained a new perspective on being a professional musician and teacher of the viola, an instrument previously neglected. William Primrose had many obstacles in his life both professionally and physically, but his attitude and determination throughout is an example to us all. These letters give insight to his many friendships with other musicians and students. He was a wonderful pedagogue and the letters give many gems of his teachings. The letters also tell of his recordings, his travels, and his performing career. He truly lived the life of a celebrated virtuoso. This index of his letters will help perpetuate the legacy he left to the viola community.