Cecil was born in South Africa in 1916, the youngest of three children who all showed remarkable musical talent from an early age. One after the other they won the coveted overseas scholarship to come and study in England - Cecil in 1935 as a violinist. I have a feeling that all other budding musicians in South Africa must have breathed sighs of relief when the last Aronowitz left South Africa leaving the way clear for someone else to have a chance to win the prize. Cecil’s earliest training had been unorthodox, to say the least. He was taught by a nun whose only knowledge of the violin was from a book. Barely managing to keep up with her young protégé she nevertheless must have helped to inspire the enthusiasm which never left him. In 1933 he went to Durban to study with Stirling Robbins and although it was only for two years it was the start of a lifelong friendship. Cecil’s distinctive swaying movements when he performed developed, he insisted, from those early days when he used to practice in a treehouse he built for himself and had to dodge the avocados nearby monkeys pelted him with.

In 1939 war interrupted Cecil’s studies at the Royal College of Music and he spent the next six years in the army. When he returned to England he no longer felt able to continue with his violin studies and he switched to the viola. It was at this time that he bought the instrument that he was to play for the rest of his life. He paid £25 for it and I still have the receipt. Player and instrument were a perfect match. It was not a great viola and had no pedigree as such. Nobody could ever quite agree what it was or where it might have come from. But Cecil loved it and his unique sound was forged on that instrument and although, through the years, he was to have access to many fine and valuable instruments he always returned to his own. Towards the end of his life Benjamin Britten gave him his own viola (a bequest from his teacher, Frank Bridge) on permanent loan but Cecil rarely played it and after his death I returned it to the Britten Estate. Cecil’s career took off and he started many collaborations that were to last in several instances until his death. Notable amongst these were with the Amadeus Quartet (as second violist in the string quintet repertoire) and the Melos Ensemble, which he co-founded. He also played regularly with the London Mozart Players, the Goldsbrough Orchestra, later to become the English Chamber Orchestra in which he led the violas, and at the Aldeburgh Festival where he appeared every year from 1949, as soloist, chamber musician, leader of the violas in the English Opera Group, until his death.

Benjamin Britten wrote many viola parts with Cecil in mind, particularly in the chamber and church operas which were often scored for single instruments. The ensemble in Britten’s War Requiem was written for the Melos Ensemble who took part in all the early performances of this work. He and I began playing together very soon after we met and gave many concerts over the years,often just the two of us but also frequently with Thea King and with Terence Weil, the Melos Ensemble's cellist. In 1976 Cecil and I gave the first public performance outside Russia of Shostakovich’s last work, the sonata for viola and piano.This took place in Aldeburgh as part of the Festival and was attended by Britten - by then a very sick man - and by Shostakovich’s widow.

As a teacher Cecil was known and loved by scores of young musicians,many of whom went on to lead highly successful careers in music. He taught viola and chamber music at the Royal College of Music for twenty five years until relinquishing his position there to become the first Head of Strings at the newly formed Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester in 1973. He also taught at the Menuhin School and coached chamber music at Dartington Summer School for over twenty years. Twice he was invited to coach chamber music at the International School in Banff, Canada, the last time shortly before his death. His final project was one very close to his heart - the formation of a school in Snape, now known as the Britten-Pears School, where, as the first head of string studies, he established the Britten-Pears Orchestra and string quartet courses. It was during one of the first of these courses that he suffered a stroke whilst performing Mozart’s C major string quintet with his colleagues. He died the following morning. Shocking though it was I felt that for Cecil it was the right way for him to go - in the midst of performing Mozart, a composer very dear to him. Cecil’s viola almost died with him. When he collapsed he fell on top of it. Smashed almost beyond repair it was patiently and lovingly restored by Charles Beare. Eventually one of Cecil’s ex-pupils, Eric Rycroft, a South African who had studied with Cecil at the Royal College of Music, contacted me with a view to purchasing it. Thus Cecil’s viola was taken to South Africa by Eric who played it for many happy years and kept in constant touch with me. Sadly Eric suffered an appalling accident some three years ago which left him unable to play any more. Last year a pupil of Eric’s, Louise Lansdown, acquired the viola which is now at the Royal Northern College of Music where Louise teaches.

© Nicola Grunberg 2004