Raymond Jeremy, FRAM, (1890-1969) was a British violist, known for his quartet playing, particularly the first performances of

Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...

String Quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

and

Piano Quintet In classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly a string quartet (i.e., two violins, viola, and cello). The term also refers to the group of musicians that plays a pian ...

. He was professor of violin and viola at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

in London and taught the violist

Watson Forbes Watson Douglas Buchanan Forbes (16 November 1909 in St Andrews – 25 June 1997 in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire) was a Scottish violist and classical music arranger. From 1964 to 1974 he was Head of Music for BBC Scotland. Early life Wats ...

Biography

Raymond Jeremy was born in Laugharne, Wales in 1890. His early instruction on the violin was in Wales with Oliver Williams. After three years of study with Williams, Jeremy was awarded the

Ada Lewis Ada Hannah Lewis-Hill born (26 April 1844–13 October 1906) was an English amateur musician and philanthropist. She was a well-known financier of the arts and lover of music, and played the violin and cello; however she was not considered parti ...

scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where his violin professor was

Hans Wessely Hans Wessely (23 December 1862 – 29 September 1926) was an Austrian violinist. Biography He was born in Vienna in 1862 and died in Innsbruck in 1926. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory with Karl Heissler and Josef Hellmesberger, Sr. ...

. During his final year at the academy, he met Lionel Tertis and turned to the viola. Whilst at the Royal Academy of Music, Jeremy twice won the Charles Rube Prize for ensemble playing. Jeremy played in Thomas Beecham's Symphony Orchestra in 1910 when

Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...

's new operas '' Elektra'' and ''

Salome Salome (; he, שְלוֹמִית, Shlomit, related to , "peace"; el, Σαλώμη), also known as Salome III, was a Jewish princess, the daughter of Herod II, son of Herod the Great, and princess Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great, an ...

'', received their first performances in Britain. He also played in Sir Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra. Jeremy played with numerous ensembles over his playing career including the

Kutcher String Quartet The Kutcher String Quartet was founded by its first violinist, Samuel Kutcher (1898-1984), who had by 1922 established himself as an accomplished solo artist and the previous year been a member of the Philharmonic Quartet, Philharmonic String Qu ...

, the International Quartet, the Allied Quartet, the

Philharmonic Quartet The Philharmonic Quartet was an English string quartet musical ensemble founded during the period of the First World War and remaining active until the early 1940s, by which time none of the original members were present in the group. Original ...

, the London Piano Quartet, the

Virtuoso Quartet The Virtuoso String Quartet was a British quartet, founded by the Gramophone Company (better known as HMV) in 1924, being the first such quartet established specifically for recording. In effect they displaced the Catterall Quartet from their posi ...

, the Meredyll Quartet, the Harp Ensemble, the Spencer Dyke Quartet, the British String Quartet, the Sybil Eaton Quartet, and the Henkel Piano Quartet. He also accompanied other String Quartets such as the London String Quartet and the

Stratton Quartet The Stratton String Quartet was a British musical ensemble active during the 1930s and 1940s. They were specially associated with the performance of British music, of which they gave numerous premieres, and were a prominent feature in the wartime c ...

. With the Philharmonic quartet, Jeremy played in the premieres of two works by Arnold Bax, the ''In Memoriam'' sextet (1917) and the G major quartet (1918). During the first world war, Jeremy recalls playing quartets with cellist Arthur Williams (brother of Jeremy's first teacher),

Jelly d'Aranyi Jelly may refer to: __NOTOC__ Food * Jelly (fruit preserves), a clear or translucent fruit spread or preserve * Jelly (dessert), a clear or translucent dessert Entertainment * The Jellys, an English punk/pop band * "Jelly" (song), a 2006 song by ...

and Adila Fachiri, and stated that he learned the most about musical performance by playing string quartets with this ensemble. It was his connection with the d'Aranyi sisters which gave him a way in to the high-society world of music. Jeremy was a good friend of Sir Edward Elgar and gave the first public performances of Elgar's String Quartet and Piano Quintet at the Wigmore Hall on 20 May 1919, with Albert Sammons and W. H. Reed (violins), Felix Salmond (cello) and William Murdoch (piano). He also performed at Lady Elgar's funeral in April 1920, playing the ''Andante Piacevole'' from Elgar's string quartet. In that year Jeremy also played at the first private performance of Arthur Bliss's ''Conversations''. In December 1924 he performed at the Wigmore Hall in London with the celebrated Russian harpist

Maria Korchinska Maria Korchinska (16 February 189517 April 1979) was a distinguished 20th-century Russian harpist and one of the leading 20th-century harpists in Great Britain. Early life Korchinska entered the Moscow Conservatory to study both piano and harp in ...

in a performance of Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp. In 1927 Jeremy gave the premiere of Bax's Phantasy Sonata, with Korchinska, the work's dedicatee. Jeremy continued to play with Korchinska in recitals around Great Britain throughout the 1930s. Jeremy also performed with the Welsh harpist . In 1929 he performed

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

's ''

Flos Campi ''Flos Campi'': suite for solo viola, small chorus and small orchestra is a composition by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, completed in 1925. Its title is Latin for "flower of the field". It is neither a concerto nor a choral piece ...

'' at the Geneva Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music. He made numerous recordings with a variety of ensembles including a recording in 1930 for the

National Gramophonic Society The National Gramophonic Society (NGS) was founded in England in 1923 by the novelist Compton Mackenzie to produce recordings of music which was ignored by commercial record companies. The Society was proposed shortly after Mackenzie had launched hi ...

Paul Juon Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...

's Chamber Symphony Op. 27. Jeremy taught in the 1920s at the

Editha Knocker Editha Grace Knocker (2 March 1869 – 19 September 1950) was an English violinist, conductor, teacher and author. Early life Knocker was born in Exmouth, Devon, the youngest of six children of Royal Navy officer Hugh Horatio Knocker a ...

School of Violin Playing and was, throughout the 1930s, a professor at the Royal Academy of Music and an examiner for their Licentiate examinations. He received the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Music (FRAM) in 1935. During the second world war, Jeremy performed in a number of concerts for the wartime Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), the precursor to the Arts Council. In his later years, he was professor of Violin and Viola at Aberystwyth College from where he retired in 1958. The conductor and composer Eugene Goossens dedicated the second movement of his String Quartet (Op.14) to Jeremy. The other movements are dedicated to Arthur Beckwith and

Cedric Sharpe Cedric Sharpe, ARCM, Hon RAM (13 April 1891 – 1978) was a British cellist, composer and music professor of the early to mid-20th century. He studied cello at the Royal College of Music later becoming professor of cello at the Royal Academy ...

, all members of the Philharmonic String Quartet who played alongside Goossens when he was the second violinist. Jeremy married Märta Vivika Norstrom in 1926 (she died in 1947) and they had one daughter, Nancy. Raymond Jeremy died in Aberystwyth in 1969, aged 78.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jeremy, Raymond 1890 births 1969 deaths British classical violists English classical violists Academics of the Royal Academy of Music Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Fellows of the Royal Academy of Music 20th-century violists People from Laugharne