Edgar Cyril Glyde

violist with the Quartet from 1944-1946

The English violist Edgar Cyril Glyde studied in London at the Royal Academy of Music; violin with Spencer Dyjke and viola with Lionel Tertis. There he bacame acquainted with York Bowen, a professor at the RAM, who championed the viola through his compositions. In the late 1920s Glyde left for Canada, playing viola with the Vancouver Symphony and the CBC orchestras and was also the Canadian representative for Trinity College London.

In 1944 he left for Toronto where he was invited to become the violist of the internationally famous Hart house String Quartet. When the quartet disbanded in 1945, he was appointed to the position of professor of violin and viola at Auburn University in Alabama, also conducting the Montgomery Symphony.

The musical heritage lives on with his daughters; Judith is head of the cello department at the University of Colorado School of Music, Rosemary (now deceased) was a distriguished viola soloist and champion of English string music, and Wendy is an organist and violinist living in Mobile, Alabama.

Source: An Anthology of British Viola Players, ed. John White. Courtesy of Judith Glyde.