About
Official Site: http://www.lincer.org/Over the course of nine decades, William Lincer earned for himself an honored place among the world's finest violists. His celebrated career was molded on his premise that "music can be thought of as a history of human emotions. Without the need for words, or theories, or philosophies, music communicates in a non-verbal and emotional way directly from the performer to listener. It is this emotion that gives music its fundamental power." Lincer spent a lifetime communicating that power to audiences as a performer and to gifted students as a teacher. William Lincer was born in Brooklyn on April 6, 1907. At age five, he began his violin studies and two years later he gave his first recital in Aeolian Hall. He continued his studies at the Institute of Musical Art, where his teachers included Leopold Lichtenberg, Samuel Gardner, and Erica Morini. Upon graduation, he formed the Lincer Quartet, pursed post-graduate courses at Harvard University, and gave numerous lectures on music appreciation throughout the country. (Photo: Lincer at the train station.) For seven years, as violist with the Jacques Gordon String Quartet, he toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada, and performed frequently at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In 1938, on the occasion of this ensemble's premiere of a string quartet by Frank Bridge, he was awarded the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Medal for Chamber Music. In 1942, Lincer accepted the principal violist position with the Cleveland Orchestra. A year later, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra appointed him principal violist to succeed Zoltan Kurthy. Lincer retained this position until his retirement at the end of the 1972 season. During his tenure with the Philharmonic, Lincer performed under the batons of Bernstein, Mitropoulos, Reiner, Szell, Toscanini, and Walter, among others, and made 57 solo appearances. These included the premieres of contemporary viola concerti by Bloch, Hohvaness, Klenner, Rivier, and Starer, as well as the presentation of the B-minor Concerto for viola by Handel-Casadesus, Harold in Italy by Berlioz, Don Quixote by Strauss (with cellist Leonard Rose), and the Sinfonia Concertante by Mozart (with violinist John Corigliano, Sr.). Representative of the favorable reviews Lincer received about the Mozart work cited above is the following: The artistry and skill of Mr. Corigliano and Mr. Lincer were so perfectly matched, their tone so subtly integrated and equalized, that their playing proved remarkably unified, and at the same time was held in just the right dynamic frame to blend absolutely with the finely considered orchestral support. It is difficult to conceive of a presentation of this work more eloquent and persuasive, or more admirable in tonal purity, beauty of texture, coloring, and expressiveness. [The New York Times, 11 March 1946, p. 18] In the summer of 1953, Lincer participated in the Casals Festival in Prades, France. Not only did he head the viola section of the festival orchestra, but he also had responsibility for much of the behind-the-scenes organization of that year's festival as well. At the close of the festival, Lincer traveled to Salzburg, Austria, in search of a Sinfonia conertante for Violin, Viola, and Cello which, in 1930, he saw listed in the Köchel catalogue of Mozart's works. Since he already had a copy of the printed viola part , he was determined to find the complete score. This he did in the Mozarteum and returned to New York with a copy of the score. Lincer premiered this one-movement concerto with the Philharmonic during its 1955 season, and thus a previously unknown work by Mozart was brought to light. Lincer began teaching students to play the violin/ viola at a young age and by the time he was 20, in 1927, had developed a large class of private students. During the summer of 1928, Lincer accepted engagements out of the New York City area and looked for a violinist to take over his private students. A young female violinist, named Mary, was recommended and she eagerly accepted. When Lincer returned to New York he found none of his students willing to return to him, They instead wished to continue their studies with Mary. At first he was upset but, as it turned out, his encounter with Mary proved to be a blessing. They were married the following year in 1929 and enjoyed 68 years of life together. It was not until the 1960s that Lincer became associated with a school of music. From 1960 to 1969, he was a member of the Manhattan School of Music faculty, and then in 1969 was named Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at the Juilliard School of Music. He also served for many years as an adjunct professor for the doctoral program in music at both Queens College in New York and at New York University. When he was a teenager, Lincer suffered a severe hand injury in an accident and was told that his performing days were at an end. Lincer did not accept this verdict and through constant exercise and the application of knowledge gained from extensive study of physiology, he was able to resume his career. In later years, he was to apply this same knowledge in his development of "an innovative and comprehensive approach to teaching the performing arts." This approach became the subject of a dissertation by one of his students, John Jake Kella, and has since been set forth in several articles. What Lincer developed was a concept of viola pedagogy that helps students achieve both technical command and emotional expression in instrumental performance. His program is centered around the following: breathing and relaxation studies, body-movement and muscle-action studies, and concentration and visualization studies. His goal is to bring students to a synthesis of all these studies so that the technical aspects of performance serve only as a vehicle through which the all-important expressive power of the music is communicated. The success of Lincer's pedagogy can be seen in the number of his students who hold important orchestral, chamber, and teaching positions in this country and abroad. Lincer made a number of recordings with the Philharmonic and was the editor of numerous viola publications. He also was the recipient of several important awards. In the 1960s he was honored by the New York Herald Tribune as the outstanding performer of his instrument in a ceremony that similarly honored Ralph Kirkpatrick and Nathan Milstein. In 1986 he received the American String Teachers Association's Artist-Teacher Award and in 1993 he was awarded a certificate and medal from the New York Viola Society. In 1996 Lincer was featured as one of this century's outstanding violists in a 3-volume CD entitled The History of the Viola on Record, issued by Pearl Records Ltd. (1995). On 31 July 1997, at the age of 90, Lincer passed away at St Luke's- Roosevelt Hospital Center, Manhattan. His tireless devotion to teaching has and will continue to influence generations of string players and musicians. |
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William Lincer
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