Lionel tertis was a legend in his own lifetime – in his prime he stood shoulder to shoulder with Ysaye, Kreisler, Thibaud, Casals, Cortot, Rubinstein and a whole galaxy of stars in the first four decades of the twentieth century. He was the first great virtuoso of the viola. His former students often described him as one of the century's most forceful and intense musicians: a powerful personality, small in stature but upright and vigorous. Bernard Shore told me that ‘magnetism seemed to flow out of his immensely strong figure, rooted to the platform like an oak tree … and one became inevitably drawn into the very heart of the music he was performing’.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century it is well to remember that one hundred years ago Lionel Tertis had begun to change the history of the viola and viola playing for all time. Tertis did not start playing the violin until he was well into his teens, and on the viola he was virtually self-taught – there simply was no one capable of teaching the instrument when he took it up in 1896. Even the great conservatoires of France and Belgium would not have viola classes for several more years, and the Berlin Hochschule would not have one until the 1920s. The viola sections of most orchestras were the least regarded of all the strings. By the time Tertis died, on 22 February 1975, in his ninety-ninth year, the situation had completely changed, and he had been largely responsible for that change. This book is an attempt to put that long life into perspective and to bring the Father of the Viola back into the limelight, where he belongs.

Lionel Tertis's name was known to me from my childhood, when I collected information about musicians mainly from The Strad magazine and the Radio Times. Photographs and written information were cut out and pasted in a scrapbook with a different page for conductors, pianists, violinists etc. – the page devoted to viola players consisted mainly of pictures of Tertis.

Coronation year, 1953, was memorable for so many reasons. In the sporting world, for example, another hero of mine, the Yorkshire cricketer Leonard Hutton, led England to a thrilling Ashes victory against Australia at the Oval. In my own small world things were also beginning to change.