By his own account, the British viola player Eric Coates possessed a rather
unusual instrument. While a student of Tertis, he describes trading up to a
new viola thus:


'Then, quite unexpectedly, I was given the opportunity of purchasing an
instrument from a brother viola player. A telegram was immediately despatched
to my father, making an urgent request for the necessary money, and a cheque
arrived by the next post. And so my little Testore went to defray the cost of
my new acquisition, a viola of such strange build that when I took it in to
Arthur Beare of Wardour Street to have it put in shape he was quite incoherent
for some moments. When Tertis saw it for the first time he almost laughed, and
on the occasion of its appearance in the Zimmerman ensemble class, proceedings
were held up for quite ten minutes while it was handed round for inspection.
Beare simply would not take it seriously and gave his opinion that there could
not be another like it in the world, for the reason that its maker would most
certainly have died of heart failure when he realised the full horror of the
finished article; Tertis, at first, could not take it seriously either, and
although he altered his opinion slightly when he played on it, he always
regarded it with a certain measure of doubt; Zimmerman looked upon it as a
complete freak and could not understand why an instrument whose structure was so
unorthodox could possess such a lovely quality of tone. I remember his taking
it in hands, scrutinising it from its scroll to its tailpiece, turning it over
and over again, plucking the strings, and then handing it back to me with the
words: "Vell, my deer Meester Coates, it is most peculiar, but it is
vonderful."

And so it was. Extraordinary in build - tremendously deep from back to front,
with little patches let in here and there to its back and belly as if, at one
time or other, it had received unkind treatment from unappreciative hands, and F
holes of such proportions that it went round the profession in later years that
I made use of their abnormal size to push my sandwiches inside the body of the
instrument when time did not permit of a proper meal. Everywhere I went they
laughed – "But it is all wrong!" "It is so fat!" "It is just like a boat!" –
and then someone spread the rumour that I was contemplating a Mediterranean
cruise in my viola. Probably from a collector's point of view it was
valueless, but what did I care for those who put their instruments under glass
cases merely for the satisfaction of gloating over them and telling their
friends about the fabulous sums they had paid to acquire such-and-such a make
from so-and-so! "And do you know, they tell me that it is believed Paganini
once played on it!" How much better for some violinist to be playing on it
now! Well, my much despised and nameless viola could hold its own with any of
the famous makers and in some cases beat them.

And so all the viola players who smiled, and jibed, and ridiculed, were
silenced; but I always had the feeling at the back of my mind that, although my
beloved instrument sounded so lovely, the fact that it looked so odd made them
regard both it and me with suspicion.'


I'm interested to know whether anyone on the list has any idea what became of
this instrument. And whether it is being played today, and if so by whom?!
From his description, it sounds like once seen, never forgotten!

Thanks,
Ed.