Marco Pallis

Marco Pallis (19 June 1895, Liverpool — 5 June 1989, London?) was a British gambist, composer, founder of the English Consort Of Viols ensemble, HonRAM (Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music), mountaineer, and scholar who wrote on Tibetan Buddhism and was a notable representative of the Traditionalist School in perennial philosophy, alongside Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings, and Huston Smith. Pallis was born into a wealthy, cosmopolitan English-Greek family and studied entomology at the University of Liverpool. In 1912, seventeen-year-old Marco joined the military, fighting against the Ottoman Empire in the first Balkan Wars. During the First World War, Pallis served with the Salvation Army, British forces, and the Grenadier Guards, honorably discharged in 1918 with a severe knee injury. After the war, Marco Pallis began climbing against the doctor's advice, joining expeditions to the Arctic, Switzerland, the Scottish Highlands, Wales, and the Dolomite Alps in Italy. In the early 1920s, Marco Pallis traveled to Haslemere in West Surrey to pursue early music studies, yet another of his passions, under renowned Arnold Dolmetsch (1858—1940). He learned viola da gamba and extensively researched XVI-XVII century repertoire, becoming one of Dolmetsch's most devoted protégés and, subsequently, his sponsor and patron. Unlike his other disciples, Pallis was exceptionally wealthy and could finance his mentor's workshop and various cultural activities, including the Haslemere Festival in 1925 and the Arnold Dolmetsch Foundation, which sponsored students and apprentices. In 1933, Marco Pallis organized his first Himalayan expedition, making the first recorded ascension of the 6,816-meter Reo Purgyil mountain peak in Kinnaur district in northern India. After returning to England, Pallis and his old friend, violist Richard Nicholson, decided to create an "early music" ensemble. Marco invited fellow Dolmetsch's viol students Elizabeth Goble (1907—1981) and Robert Donington (1907—1990) and launched the English Consort Of Viols in 1935. The following year, Pallis and Nicholson returned to the Himalayas; even though their attempt to climb the 6,815-m Simvu peak in Sikkim failed, Marco discovered his passion for Tibetan Buddhism. They couldn't acquire permits to cross the Tibetan border on this journey and returned home after traveling across Ladakh. In February 1938, the English Consort Of Viols quintet gave its debut performance at London's Wigmore Hall. In 1947, after the Second World War and not long before the Chinese invasion, Marco and Robert finally visited Tibet. Pallis spent almost a year traveling across the Tsang province, introduced to all four leading schools of Tibetan Buddhism — Gelug, Kagyu, Sakya, and the oldest Nyingma tradition. He visited several notable monasteries, including Pel Sakya and Tashilhunpo, the Panchen Lama seat. After leaving Tibet, Marco spent another four years in Kalimpong in India, where he befriended H.H. Dalai Lama's former translator, Heinrich Harrer. (Ten years later, Pallis assisted Harrer in exposing the infamous "Lobsang Rampa" writer, a.k.a. high school dropout and plumber Cyril Hoskin.) In 1951, Marco returned to England. He began teaching viol at the Royal Academy of Music in London and revived the English Consort Of Viols. The ensemble released three LP records on Saga, Abbey, and Turnabout labels, performed extensively across the UK, and embarked on two USA tours. Pallis regularly contributed to the Studies in Comparative Religion journal; he was a vocal force behind the Tibetan Society, the first support group for the exiled Tibetan government created in the West. Marco housed numerous Tibetan refugees in London and befriended Chögyam Trungpa (1939—1987), who had just recently arrived in the UK. Between 1969 and 1978, Marco Pallis published several articles on viol's history in Early Music and the Viola da Gamba Society's VdGSA Journal in America. As a composer, Pallis wrote several notable works towards the end of his life, including "Divisions upon a Ground" (1980) for viol with organ or harpsichord, the "Renaissance Tunes" (1983-84) collection of string instruments arrangements, "Nocturne de l’Ephémère" (1985), premiered at Queen Elizabeth Hall when Marco was 90 years old, and "String Quartet in F# Minor" published posthumously in 1991. He also left an unfinished opera based on Milarepa's life, "Drame Spirituel en Quatre Parties."