Roger Delage 1st prize in 1949

On March 1, 1951, Maurice Vieux played for the last time in public. The artists Nazly of Staecklin, André Proffit, Jacques Dejean and André Navarra who, with him, played the Quartet in C minor and the second quintet of Fauré, told us what they owed to the calm mastery of the violist who simply supported them, allowing them to be fully dedicated to the work at hand. However, the one to whom our warmest applause went gave us some worry. Obviously, his coat was now too ample for him, his complexion had no longer the freshness we had known, he walked slowly, carefully, his breath was short. He was sick, seriously ill. We knew it, and so did he. How could he have ignored it when doctors surrounded him, and he could not fail to see his strength, which had been so great, declining?

However, we scarcely dared to speak to him of his health, for his extraordinary courage was there, denying his illness. He disregarded the ordinances of the doctors who recommended he rests. We saw him work hard until the day before his death. This trait of stoicism shines a light on this singular man.

How not to be sad when you know that, about three years ago, Maurice Vieux was preparing to focus more on his career as a soloist. It was then that this heart disease of which he was to die from was declared, forbidding him to carry out his project. How not to be sad that there is no phonographic recordings of one of the perfect virtuosos of this century ...

It has been unanimously said that: "his tried and tested style, his accomplished technique, his ample and generous sound, his natural sense of expression and the strongest musicality. What delighted me when watching my master was that extraordinary suppleness we see in great sportsmen, great dancers, and famous acrobats. The viola in hand, Vieux was laid back, the dangerous traits seemed easy, effortless. I want to recall here a little fact that is seemingly irrelevant, but which, however, enlightened me on his agility. We had lunch and the table was cluttered with dishes and crystals. He wanted to take a drink from a guest to pour some wine. Seeing this apparently soft hand, like a cat's paw, I feared it was going to knock over some object while grabbing the crystal. Plump, broad, with ragged fingers, his hand had the delicacy of a gardener’s hand, and did not show the tapered, slender aspect that is almost always wrongly attributed to the "artist's hands."

When, for the first time, I met M. Vieux, I did not feel that sudden sympathy which sometimes unites us, at first, with certain human beings. It took me some time - and my friendship became even more vivid - to override that slightly grumpy mood and discover behind this imposing and rough carapace who he really was: a teacher devoted to his pupils, a delicate man without affectation, a great kindness. The sycophancy was not his forte, he did not belong to that kind of pedagogue who, with the pupil, is gentle, benevolent, conciliatory, paternal; nor was it cold and easily sarcastic, which looks down upon and paralyses the superiority with which they are entrusted to those entrusted to them. We knew he was sincere and uncompromising. And it is, I believe, this intransigence that we find throughout his artistic career. This maxim of Plautus, he could have made it his own: "It is by merit and not by favor that we must seek to advance".

André Jouvensal 1st prize in 1922

For years, we have been anxiously admiring the fierce fight against death, his passionate refusal to abandon his pupils to whom, for more than thirty-three years, he gave the best of himself. Alas! the evil ended up triumphing and did not allow him this expected joy: to celebrate these next few days his hundredth first prize, which he expected with a legitimate pride and which will express better than any eulogy the loss suffered by our Conservatoire and by the French music.

It is only natural that a teacher worthy of this beautiful but difficult profession should be surrounded by the exclusive and affectionate admiration of his pupils. It is also a beautiful tradition that, on a tomb still fresh, envy and ingratitude keep silent, and be deposited only praises, more or less hyperbolic. The task of whoever wants to draw a true, deeply sincere portrait of a disappeared man is made difficult. In doubt, it suffices to allow one's heart to speak and to simply say what one knows; age and experience having taught us to judge the expression of our feelings.

Those who have not heard him can not imagine the male sonority combined with a nobility of style of a rare dignity he had. His charm without concession to facility, his astounding technique, always ready and always at ease, his sovereign authority in the playing style as well in the attitude, as far from the morgue as the false modesty; in short, these qualities so diverse, united in such right proportions, made him an inevitable choice among all the virtuosos of all countries for the ensembles of Enesco, Kreisler, Cortot, Thibaud, Casals, Francescatti, or Saint-Saens, Debussy, d'Indy and so many others.

A career of international virtuosity? It was up to him, and I remember the short hesitation when, in 1919, the Minister wanted to send him for an important series of concerts in the United States, when such impresario solicited him for the Germany, Italy, Central Europe: "What would become of my students? "

The mastery of his teaching, his ardor and his meticulousness were as lively as ever in the evening of an exhausting day for anyone else: after the seventh hour of lesson, the final chord of a Valkyrie or a Rose Knight found him as valiant, as triumphant as he had been at the beginning of a sparkling recital. And how many of us owe him an emotional memory for some help, or a favour sometimes hidden by a charming modesty; his table was open to those who were going through a difficult time, his complete hospitality offered to others who were ill in some modest hotel room; we can not count his efforts in order to provide jobs and support, to fix an injustice, to palliate a misfortune. If they were less spectacular, the services rendered to the French Music by such a master were, we believe, more effective and more durable than many glorious recitals.

When this modest tribute will be read, the Conservatoire de Paris will have awarded the first Premiere Viola of Maurice Vieux's class a cast of this powerful hand, the frightful agility of which we considered with timid respect. His bust was erected in this little room, where his indignant voice still echoes from some technical mistake, or his laughter blooming before a difficulty overcome with elegance. And then Maurice Vieux will still live in the heart of so many beings who owe him such beautiful artistic joys, so many young people who owe to him the little they know. If it is true that the dying are reviewing their existence, Maurice Vieux left comforted by noting that his sowing has risen well: a pleiad of artists follow his trace, strive to resemble him. But all remain dismayed, knowing how much he remains irreplaceable.