| Biography | Gwynne Edwards (born 1909 died 9 June 2000) was Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at the Royal Academy of Music, where he taught for thirty-six years, and in a long career had been principal violist with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonia of London as well as co-principal of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic. He played chamber music with the Quartet Pro Musica and Virtuoso Ensemble, and was a regular guest with the Aeolian, London and Martin string quartets. Along the way, as a freelance, he also played for the Beatles, and can be heard on the album Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Gwynne Edwards was born in Pontycymmer, South Wales, and studied the violin and organ with his father and aunt. He was educated at Taunton School, where he achieved the rare double of playing the organ in chapel in the morning and donning the No 15 jersey for the rugby team in the afternoon. Edwards took the Associated Board's Grade 8 examination for both the organ and violin on the same summer day in 1927 and achieved distinctions in both. With 149 out of 150 marks for the violin, he received the Associated Board's gold medal and a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. Within two years he was a sub-professor, and under the direction of Lionel Tertis he was converted to the viola. Tertis impressed on Edwards the necessity for clarity of musical intent - a detail for colour, intonation and quality of tone.
During this time Edwards became one of Lord Beaverbrook's "Stornoway Players", an ensemble of Royal Academy students who dined and performed at his London home as part of his fad for culture. Beaverbrook also took on Edwards at squash, but the musician was quietly advised by a private secretary to lose gallantly. When asked, years later, whether he had ever beaten Beaverbrook, Edwards replied with a wry smile: "Oh, I should think so."
When he joined Sir Adrian Boult's BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1931 - meeting Sir Edward Elgar and working with Sir Henry Wood along the way - Edwards's sporting spirit emerged again. For as well as performing in 12 Promenade seasons, he shared the BBC's full-back position with the newsreader Robert Dougall, and played cricket for its First XI, top scoring with 52 against MCC.
During the war he served in the 22nd Dragoons and operated as a tank commander. He may have felt a particular personal commitment to King and Country, having once played in a quartet for the then Queen and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret at King's Lynn. In 1953 he was to lead the viola section at the Coronation in Westminster Abbey. He returned to the BBC briefly after the war before becoming principal viola at the London Symphony Orchestra in 1947. Seven years later he joined the Royal Philharmonic as co-principal. His orchestral career spanned the period of many great conductors, but Toscanini remained his hero.
Edwards's impact as an inspirational teacher will be equally well remembered. His was a fellow at the Royal Academy where his tutoring spanned five decades, and at one stage the principal violists of all the major London orchestras were former pupils of his. He worked with the BBC Training Orchestra and Hertfordshire Youth Orchestras, and was appointed violin and viola coach to the National Youth Orchestra of Wales and deputy coach to the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He was awarded an honorary degree by the Royal College of Music in July 1971.
During the 1970s Edwards increased his work as a freelance session player. Whether at Elstree Studios with the likes of Streisand, Sinatra and Bing Crosby or at Abbey Road with the Beatles playing A Day in the Life, he played down this element of his work, saying: "It's not really proper music." Although he moved to Herefordshire to 'smell the flowers' in 1981, Edwards did not give up his music. He commuted to London three times a week until he retired from the Royal Academy in 1984, but even then he taught privately from home up to the age of 88. His perennial humour and fitness gave him an air of immortality. As one former pupil said, when two or three viola players gathered together, his name invariably arose. |