Paul Doktor

Who was Paul Doktor?

Paul Doktor was a notable violist and orchestra conductor.

The son of singer-pianist Georgine and violist Karl Doktor, at the age of five, Paul began violin studies with his father, and received his diploma from the State Academy of Music in 1938. While still in his teens, he toured as a violinist with the Adolf Busch Chamber Orchestra, but the youthful performer's mastery of the viola came to the fore when, at a few days' notice, he was asked to take over from the ailing second violist in a performance of a Mendelssohn Quintet with the Busch Quartet. His achievement was so remarkable that he was invited to join the Quartet in presenting a series of Mozart quintets at London's Wigmore Hall. From then on, Paul Doktor stuck to the instrument fate had chosen for him, and became the first violist ever to have been awarded unanimously the First Prize at the International Music Competition in Geneva. He left Vienna in 1938 and from 1939 to 1947 was solo violist with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. He moved to the United States in 1947 and became an American citizen in 1952.

His American debut at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was certainly auspicious: "Not for many years has so competent a master of the viola been heard in American concert halls", commented the Washington Post. From then on, he appeared widely as recitalist, soloist with orchestras and as a chamber musician. Paul Doktor was equally at home with the baroque, classical and modern repertoires. With Yaltah Menuhin, he introduced to American audiences a concerto by J.C.F. Bach for viola, pianoforte and orchestra, which he had discovered in Paris. He gave the world premiere of Quincy Porter's Concerto for Viola and Orchestra at the Columbia University American Music Festival and recorded Walter Piston's Viola Concerto with the Louisville Orchestra for their First Edition Record series. He also played the BBC premiere of Wilfred Josephs' concertante, which he repeated for its American premiere in New York.