So what is a viola?
All of you, albeit unbeknownst to you, have seen and heard a viola. In the Classical legacy of the String Quartet and of the Symphony, the viola has been at the physical and harmonic center of Western music and of its evolution.
It is a bowed string instrument, and together with the violin, the cello and the bass, it is part of the violin family.
You’ll often hear that the viola is merely a larger, lower-pitched violin. First of all, this is a very limiting definition. Then if one were to use that definition, one might point out that it is historically, etymologically, and technically inaccurate for it is indeed the violin that is a smaller, higher-pitched viola.
The sonority of the viola has a dusky luminescence about it. It is as intense and mesmerizing as dark magma. It is low, rich, deep, warm, almost spellbinding, and often remarkably close to the human voice in its inflections. If the violin is the Soprano of the strings, the viola is their tenor, and everybody loves a good tenor! The viola is an intense and velvety dark chocolate. The violin is music’s coffee, the cello is a chocolate cake, and the bass is fudge.
The viola has been championed on concert stages throughout the world for centuries by violists of formidable stature and impeccable artistry such as William Primrose, Lionel Tertis, Yuri Bashmet, Kim Kashkashian or Tabea Zimmermann. Many luminaries of the violin world, including Paganini, Vieuxtemps, Yehudi Menhuin, David Oistrakh and Pinchas Zuckermann have been lured by the charm of the viola. Many of the greatest composers, Bach, Mozart, Paganini, Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, Hindemith, and even Jimi Hendrix, were all violists by choice, and except for Jimi Hendrix, wrote very well for the viola!
Yet the viola remains unjustly unknown, under appreciated, relatively under performed, and most of all plagued by stereotypes that were already old-fashioned a hundred years ago, about violists being but failed violinists, with nothing to play, and a life confined to out of tune oompahs. But if those stereotypes weren’t enough, what really hurts the viola’s reputation is that composers who write for the viola also seem to have a slight tendency to die…
The “death by viola list” (until further update) reads as follows: Debussy was diagnosed with cancer after he wrote his Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp; Bartok and Bloch died leaving the former’s Viola Concerto, and the latter’s Suite for Solo Viola unfinished. Shostakovich wrote his Viola Sonata and died. Britten orchestrated his Lachrimae and died. And Smetana who gave great prominence to the viola in his String Quartet “From my life” by typecasting it as the personification of pain, tragedy and suffering, was writing an opera based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night; he named it after its protagonist, Viola, and died.
Here are just a few more statistics about the viola, beyond its status as a composer-killing machine, which illustrate that the viola is NOT plagued by a quantitative and qualitative paucity of things to play, but indeed blessed by an infinitely versatile, and eclectic body of works.
- In your lifetime you might hear any of three Classical Concertos: Mozart’sSinfonia Concertante, which pairs the viola with the violin on a note-for-note equality, the D major concerto by Karl Stamitz, and the Hoffmeister Concerto. There are more than 200 viola concertos written between 1750 and 1810.
- In your lifetime you might hear any of three 20th century concertos: Bartok’s, Walton, and Hindemith’s Schwanendreher (also nicknamed the Schwarzenegger, and the washer-dryer). There are more than 80 concertos, written for the great Yuri Bashmet alone, and virtually every renowned composer in the past 80 years has written a viola concerto or a major work for viola.
- One of the most important, and valuable viola repertoire lists, the Zeyringer Litteratur, though outdated and incomplete, catalogues more than 15,000 works with viola. It only makes one mention of a work for viola and choir. I now know of 136 such works, by composers as diverse and important as Gabrieli, Schubert, Schoenberg, Janacek, Puccini, Donizetti, Reger, or Libby Larsen, to name but a few, most of which are never performed, rarely recorded, and sometimes, not even published. I could make a career out of playing those works, and not run out of things to play.
Far from seeing the viola as a hindrance, we violists welcome it as particularly colorful and unique set of wings.
We enjoy the limelight like anybody else, but we relish our inner voice status, and love to be at the core of the harmony and of the musical texture. We understand that music is dialogue, conversation and exchange. We enjoy the great insight of seeing and hearing the music from within, and from the inside out.
The viola has been referred to as the Cinderella or even the “ugly duckling” of instruments, implying that its myriad qualities are marred and derided but eventually recognized. It is to help the viola get this recognition that VIOLA BY CHOICE exists.
The ventures of VIOLA BY CHOICE are intended to be a celebration of life, and a glorification of the power of art to unite and touch us all.
