Viola
(Fr.
alto; Ger. Bratsche).
The
term ‘viola’ now refers to the alto (or, more properly, to the alto-tenor)
member of the violin family (for earlier meanings, see §2 below). The viola
came into being in northern Italy at about the same time (not later than 1535)
as the other members of the new violin family.
1. The modern
instrument.
2. Earlier meanings of
the term ‘viola’.
3. Violas as
‘instruments of the middle’.
4. Viola construction
in the 19th and 20th centuries.
5. Repertory.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DAVID D. BOYDEN/ANN M. WOODWARD
Viola
1. The modern instrument.
The
viola, in general, has the darker, warmer, richer tone qualities of the alto
voice as opposed to the lighter, more brilliant soprano of the violin. The
strings are tuned to c–g–d'–a', a 5th below the violin. Its highest
string (a') may produce something of a contrast in timbre to the other
strings: on some violas more piercing and nasal. The lowest string (c)
of a fine viola is capable of a clear, beautiful, resonant and powerful tone
eagerly sought by both makers and players. Viola tone, however, can be less
assertive, more mellow, even subdued at times. To produce optimum strength of
tone and, especially, beauty and depth on its lower strings, the ideal size for
a viola would make it too long for the player’s arm.
Viola
size has never been standardized as to length of body, depth of ribs or width
of bouts. To replicate the acoustical results of the violin (whose length is
standardized at an average of 35·5 cm), the viola would require a body half as
long again as the violin’s (approximately 53 cm). Full-sized violas can range
in size from 38 to more than 48 cm. However, while the smallest viola can
rarely produce a truly powerful and resonant C-string sound, the largest are
virtually impossible for most players to handle. Differing sizes of violas are
best explained by a maker’s intention to produce an instrument basically alto
or tenor in tone quality (see fig.3) although the
differing lengths of players’ arms and the demands of the repertory are
certainly still considered pertinent factors. For practical reasons the most
utilized violas probably have body lengths in the 41 to 43 cm range.
Just
as the length of the viola varies from instrument to instrument, so, naturally,
does the sounding length of the strings (i.e. the open string measured from
inside the nut to the inside of the top of the bridge). On the modern violin
this length is standardized at about 33 cm. On a typical modern viola with a
fairly substantial body length (for instance, 42·5 cm, as on the ‘Tertis’
viola; see §4 below), the corresponding open-string length is about 38·5 cm
(see fig.1b). An extant specimen of a large viola
of the late 16th century (made by Gasparo da Salò and now in the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford; fig.1a) has a 44·5 cm body, but the open-string length
is only 36·2 cm because the instrument still has its original short neck.
The
strings of the viola were originally gut, but a wound C string must have been
used in the 18th century and probably also a wound G string in the 19th. In
modern practice, wound strings (i.e. with metal wound over gut, synthetic or
metal cores) are often used for all four strings to aid their capacity to
‘speak’, to improve their evenness of tone and response from string to string,
to stabilize intonation and to reduce breakage. The fingering and bowing
techniques of the viola are similar in principle to the violin’s, and many
technical studies (e.g. Kreutzer, Ševčík) are simply transposed down a 5th
for the viola. Differences in technique are related to the viola’s larger size.
For one thing, its weight and size suggest that it be held with its scroll
slightly lower than is common on the violin. Viola fingering, while similar to
that of the violin, utilizes more half-position playing and demands greater
left-hand expansion. The vibrato is generally somewhat wider and less intense
on the viola than on the violin. While viola bowing is in principle similar to
that of the violin, the viola player uses somewhat greater energy on the
viola’s thicker strings to make them ‘speak’ properly, while the bow itself is
generally heavier and slightly shorter.
Viola
2. Earlier meanings of the term ‘viola’.
By
1535 the alto-tenor violin (the modern viola) was established as one of the
three principal members of the new violin family (see Violin), but it was not called
‘viola’ because at that time the term had a variety of meanings both general
and specific. Around 1500 ‘viola’, in the most general sense, might mean any
bowed string instrument. From this general sense, the Italian term viola
(Fr. vielle; Ger. Fidel) was modified in various ways to describe
a specific family or a specific instrument. Examples from the 16th and 17th
centuries are the viola da braccio (‘arm viola’; a member of the violin
family), soprano di viola da braccio (violin), viola da gamba
(‘leg viola’; a member of the viol family) and basso di viola da gamba
(bass viol). Later instances are the Viola d’amore and Viola pomposa.
When
used before approximately 1550, ‘viola’ may also have the specific meaning of a
Renaissance Fiddle or a lira da braccio (but not generally a rebec).
Frequent statements to the contrary notwithstanding, the unqualified term
‘viola’, used alone, rarely if ever means violin. However, the converse is
sometimes true: in Venetian usage around 1600, ‘violino’ may mean viola (alto
violin) as well as violin proper (for example in Zacconi, Prattica di musica,
1592; G. Gabrieli, Sonata pian e forte, 1597).
In
the 17th and 18th centuries ‘viola’ is often used with adjectives to denote
different registers (but not change of tuning, which, whatever register was
involved, moved invariably upwards in 5ths from c). In Albinoni’s Sinfonie
e concerti a cinque op.2 (1700), for example, two of the partbooks are
labelled ‘Alto Viola’ and ‘Tenor Viola’ for what are respectively viola I and
viola II parts, one playing in the alto register and the other in the tenor;
Handel’s op.3 no.1 concerto has one part marked ‘Alto Viola’ and another
‘Tenor’ in the Walsh edition of 1734 (see also Tenor
violin).
Similarly, in the five-part French ensembles described by Mersenne (1636–7) the
three ‘parts of the middle’ are all violas (all with the customary c
tuning), but of differing sizes and playing in different registers. Hence the
24 Violons du Roi included haute-contre or haute-contre taille
(contralto or contralto-tenor: viola I), taille (tenor: viola II) and quinte
or cinquiesme (fifth: viola III).
By
the 18th century ‘viola’ (alto violin) was equated with viola da brazzo
(braz.), from viola da braccio (see above); hence Bratsche,
the modern German term for viola (alto violin). Brossard’s Dictionaire
(Paris, 1703) ties the two sets of meanings together, equating braz. I
with haute-contre (alto viola or viola I), braz. II with taille
(tenor viola or viola II) and braz. III with viola III. Brossard also
mentioned ‘viola IV’, but said it was not used in France. The term ‘violetta’,
used in the 16th century to mean ‘violin’ or even ‘viol’ in certain contexts,
often refers in the 18th century to the viola (alto violin). Adjectives may
also alter the meaning: violetta marina, for instance, is a species of
viola d’amore.
Viola
3. Violas as ‘instruments of the middle’.
Historically,
the viola was ‘the instrument of the middle’, being used for both the alto and
tenor registers: in the 16th and 17th centuries, a four-part ensemble might use
two violas; and a five-part ensemble, three violas (see references to Mersenne,
§2). This distribution accounts for the relatively large number of violas produced
in these two centuries by makers of the time, including such famous ones as the
various members of the Amati family in Cremona and, in Brescia, Gasparo da Salò
and Maggini. The distribution of parts explains also why the sizes of violas
varied from very large models, needed to play in the deep tenor register, to
small models for playing in the higher alto register.
Some
of the tenor violas are so large as to be barely playable on the arm. The huge
Andrea Amati tenor viola of 1574 (fig.2), now in Oxford,
has a body length of 47 cm. That of the Stradivari ‘Medici’ tenor viola of 1690
(now in Florence) is 48 cm. With regard to such very large violas, the late
viola virtuoso William Primrose once remarked: ‘The viola is difficult enough
without having to indulge in a wrestling match with it’. Few of these large
tenors still exist. Besides expected attrition over the years, a number were
later altered and shortened to make them easier to manage for viola players of
a later period.
This
was one reason why few violas were made in the first part of the 18th century;
instruments were already in plentiful supply in varying sizes from the past,
and, in addition, the large tenors were cut down to the prevailing requirements
of a smaller model that became favoured after 1700. Also, violas were in less
demand for musical reasons. The typical ensemble texture of the early 18th
century was four parts, the usual orchestral distribution becoming two violin
parts, one viola part and one cello-bass part, as opposed to as many as three
viola parts in certain five-part ensembles in the 17th century. Moreover, two
of the prevailing forms of chamber music, the solo violin sonata and the trio
sonata, rarely used a viola part at all. (For usage of the viola in concertos
of the early 18th century, see §5 below.) It is therefore not surprising that,
although 600 or so Stradivari violins, violas and cellos survive, Beare cites
only ten Stradivari violas in existence, and some of them were made in the 17th
century.
Viola
4. Viola construction in the 19th and 20th centuries.
With
the perfecting of the modern (Tourte) bow around 1785, a new era in string
playing began. Around 1800, the viola, like the violin, went through various
alterations to increase string tension and carrying power and to facilitate
technique, especially left-hand fingering and shifting (see Violin,
§I, 5). Such
changes involved a lengthened and thrown-back neck and fingerboard, a longer
and heavier bass-bar, somewhat heavier strings (the lowest being wound; see
§1), and a somewhat higher bridge. New violas made in the 19th and 20th
centuries conformed to these specifications, and earlier instruments were
altered as needed to fit the new conditions. The new-model (Tourte) bow was
ideally suited to drawing out the increased power and fuller tone inherent in
the new-model viola.
Some
19th-century makers were possessed with the notion of improving the viola
acoustically by lengthening or enlarging the body. In the middle of the
century, Villaume experimented making a viola with extremely wide bouts and
Charles Henri of Paris built a viola with the entire left side larger than the
right. In 1876, Hermann Ritter introduced a viola alta (built by K.A.
Hörlein); Wagner was interested enough to use this instrument in the orchestra
at Bayreuth. However, while Ritter’s viola, which was about 48 cm in body
length, was acoustically desirable, it was effective only in proportion to the
length of the player’s arms.
Beginning
in 1937, the English viola virtuoso Lionel Tertis (1876–1975), after long
experience and experiment, began collaborating with the violin maker Arthur
Richardson to create a model viola intended to combine fullness, depth and
beauty of tone in a full-size viola still manageable by the player. This
‘Tertis’ model (see fig.1b), first heard in
concert in 1939, has since been produced by a number of craftsmen around the
world, and is illustrated and described in Tertis’s autobiography (1953).
Other
novel approaches to viola construction, inspired by musical and acoustic
considerations, have continued to the present time. In the 1960s, Carleen
Hutchins, after earlier research by Frederick Saunders (see Acoustics, II), designed and built a whole new violin
family of eight instruments, acoustically scaled to the violin as the ideal. Of
the eight instruments of this new family (including two pitched above the
present violin and one below the present double bass), four are new and three
are re-scaled instruments. Among the latter is the ‘viola’, re-scaled to a body
measurement of over 53 cm, and played like a cello, using an endpin, although
some viola players have chosen to play this instrument in the traditional way.
In the 1990s, David Rivinus developed his ergonomic Pellegrina viola (fig.3) with expanded upper left and lower right bouts, tilted
fingerboard, and off-centre neck. This viola, with a standard body-length
measurement of 40 cm but an acoustic length of 50·8 cm, has attracted
considerable attention and favour particularly from orchestral viola players.
This
turn-of-the-century discussion of the viola is not complete without mentioning
the electric (fig.4) and MIDI violas, including five-
and six-string ‘violins’ (c–g–d'–a'–e'' and F–c–g–d'–a'–e'',
respectively), produced in a variety of shapes and sizes by an increasing
number of makers around the world. Although an acoustic viola may achieve
amplification with a microphone pick-up attached near the bridge or the f-hole,
a dedicated electric viola will use built-in piezo or magnetic pickups located
in or under the bridge. Some of these built-in pickups (the best known are made
by Barbera Transducer Systems and Zeta Music Systems), with appropriate
pre-amplification systems, produce a remarkably beautiful tone quality scarcely
distinguishable from a fine acoustic viola sound.
Viola
5. Repertory.
(i) To 1800.
(ii) From 1800.
Viola, §5: Repertory
(i) To 1800.
The
best viola makers have often been successful in minimizing the inherent
acoustical difficulties discussed above and a fine viola, played by a true
artist, is therefore capable of a beauty and variety of tone and effects of
virtuosity that are thrilling and moving in the alto-tenor register. However,
the viola has always suffered as a solo instrument by comparison with the
greater brilliance of the violin and the strength and depth of the cello. Both
violin and cello can compete more successfully with the symphony orchestra in
concertos, and this explains why, over the years, composers have written
innumerable violin concertos, a fair number for cello and until recently
comparatively few for viola. Before 1740 the viola was seldom treated as a
soloist in any context, generally being banished to the decent obscurity of the
accompaniment, realizing the harmony of the middle parts. At the low point of
its fortunes the instrument was described by J.J. Quantz (Versuch,
1752):
The
viola is commonly regarded as of little importance in the musical
establishment. The reason may well be that it is often played by persons who
are either still beginners in the ensemble or have no particular gifts with
which to distinguish themselves on the violin, or that the instrument yields
all too few advantages to its players, so that able people are not easily
persuaded to take it up. I maintain, however, that if the entire accompaniment
is to be without defect, the violist must be just as able as the second
violinist.
From
such stuff are splendid inferiority complexes born and bred in viola players!
Yet it was true that before 1740 there were no known outstanding viola players
and virtually no repertory requiring them. (The Viola Concerto in B minor
ascribed to Handel is a 20th-century forgery, ‘realized’ and ‘orchestrated’ by
Henri Casadesus and probably written by him.) Virtuoso music composed before
1740 exists for 20th-century concert viola players mostly in the form of
arrangements or transcriptions – transposed down from the violin or up from the
cello (for example the Bach solo violin sonatas and the cello suites) or
transcribed from the viol, viola d'amore or other instruments. On the other
hand, there is a fair amount of viola music in ensemble that is musically
fascinating to play, especially in fugues and other pieces found in the
concertos of such composers as Corelli, Bach, Handel and Vivaldi. Geminiani
promoted the viola to the role of soloist in the concertino of his concerti
grossi. There are viola parts of genuine musical interest in the ‘orchestras’
used in the sacred and secular works of Bach and Handel, especially when
contrapuntal textures or descriptive effects (as in opera from Monteverdi to
Gluck and Mozart) are involved. Sometimes a melody was given to the inside
voices, as in the second passepied of Bach's Suite no.1 in C, where the melody
is played by the second violins and violas in unison. Occasionally the viola
was used for special colouristic or sonorous effects: for instance, as a true
bass of an accompaniment (there being no bass part or figured continuo), in
Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in A minor op.3 no.6, whose slow movement features an
aria-like violin solo accompanied by two violins and a viola. In Purcell's
soprano aria ‘See, even night herself is here’ (from The Fairy Queen,
1692), the accompaniment comprises two muted violins and (evidently unmuted) a
viola which acts as the true bass to an imitative-counterpoint trio. However,
in spite of the many musical beauties discoverable in the ensemble use of the
viola in early music, the viola part in the orchestra seldom exploited the
technical potential of the instrument, even within the limits of 3rd position.
After
about 1740 the viola began to enjoy a new lease of life though less noticeably
in its orchestral role than elsewhere. It was treated increasingly as a solo
instrument in concertos. According to Ulrich Drüner (1981), the history of the
viola concerto begins with that of Telemann (probably written shortly before
1740) and is represented by only three other concertos from the Baroque period,
those of J.M. Dömming, A.H. Gehra and J.G. Graun. The early classical viola
concerto is represented by Georg Benda, Zelter in Berlin, Vanhal in Vienna, and
the Stamitz family in Mannheim. The Concerto in D by Carl Stamitz, one of the
virtuoso viola players of his day, is one of the standard works in the modern
repertory. A description of the viola in J.N. Forkel's Musikalischer
Almanach für Deutschland of 1782 concludes: ‘But would anyone who has heard
Stamitz play the viola with a taste for majesty and tenderness, which appears
to be peculiar only to him, not then declare himself for the viola, would he
not then accept it among his favourite instruments’. In 1792 E.L. Gerber wrote
of him: ‘With what extraordinary art and facility he plays the viola’. Among
the better known classical viola concertos are those of J.A. Amon, Friedrich
Benda, F.A. Hoffmeister, Roman Hofstetter, Ignace Pleyel, Josef Reicha, G.A.
Schneider, Joseph Schubert and, above all, Alessandro Rolla.
During
the lifetime of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven a good many changes took place in
the treatment of the viola in chamber music, especially in quartets and
quintets and occasionally in string trios and duos (e.g. those of Mozart; his
Trio for viola, clarinet and piano k498 should also be
mentioned). The changes came about partly because a basic concept of late
18th-century chamber music was that a single player played each part (thus
setting chamber music apart from the orchestra where each string part, at
least, was played by several players). In this context a viola player of any
attainment would become increasingly impatient simply playing the harmonic
filler ‘parts of the middle’ while the first violin was playing the main
melodies. Except for fugues, where the musical interest was equally
distributed, composers of early quartets, like Haydn, saw that the inner parts
of string quartets would have to be made more interesting by giving them
thematic motifs or even, from time to time, main melodies, obbligato parts or
virtuoso figuration (as in Haydn, op.33 and later). This factor in turn
animated the solo player to greater mastery of the technique of his instrument.
A
greater equality of part-writing and a notable advance of viola technique can
be observed in the mature chamber music, especially string quartets, of Mozart
and Beethoven. For instance, in Mozart's last string quartet (k590,
1790), the part-writing is equalized, solos are given to the viola and a
considerable degree of virtuosity is demanded of the instrument, especially in
any chromatic passages. Similar remarks may be made about Beethoven's chamber
music, which also makes additional use of special devices or colouristic
effects. A melody might be emphasized or reinforced, for example, by playing it
in octaves, as in the viola and first violin parts in the first movement (bars
42ff) of op.18 no.4. More unusual at this time is the exploiting of the colour
possibilities of the higher register of the C string in the fugal last movement
of op.59 no.3, where from bar 160 the viola player is required to play on the C
string in the 5th position. Beethoven treated the viola in somewhat comparable
fashion in the orchestra, but not to the same degree. Even when the orchestral
violas are heard playing melodic material they are often doubled with the
second violins (as in the Ninth Symphony, slow movement D major theme) or with
the cellos.
Mozart,
in his concerto for violin and viola (Sinfonia concertante k364/320d,
1779), treated the violin and viola as equal partners, even sharing the same
degree of difficulty in the written-out cadenza. He thus made technical demands
of the viola quite unprecedented at that time, requiring the player to reach
the 7th position at the end of the last movement (bar 439; see ex.1). Mozart was himself an excellent player
on both violin and viola, and in certain respects his double concerto is one of
the most fascinating pieces ever written for viola – if played as he wrote it.
For one thing, he provided subtle supports for the viola player, the details of
which might escape casual attention. He also scored the concerto so that the
natural brilliance of the violin is somewhat muted, while the natural reticence
of the viola is somewhat brightened and amplified. This was done by using the
key of E
for the
concerto and by writing a scordatura part for the viola. The key of E is not a brilliant one for
the violin (none of the open strings serves to reinforce the principal notes of
this key). The same is normally true of the open strings of the viola, but
Mozart followed the practice of writing the part in D, with the strings tuned
up a semitone. This ‘transposition scordatura’ means that the viola player
fingers the music as if it were in the key of D, but it sounds in E. This particular retuning
has several important effects: it increases the tension on the strings making
the viola a bit more brilliant and slightly louder; three of the four viola
strings – now tuned to what is enharmonically d, a, e' and b' – reinforce the tonic, subdominant and dominant notes
of the main key of E;
and finally, it is easier for the viola player to play in D than in E. In short, by the choice
of key and by this particular way of writing for the viola, Mozart managed to
equalize the violin and viola physically, as well as musically, with respect to
brilliance, carrying power and ease of execution. The technique of tuning the
viola up a semitone or whole tone was used in several late 18th- and early
19th-century pieces, including Vanhal's concerto in F (written in E for the viola), Carl
Stamitz's viola and piano sonata in B (written in A for the viola) and his Symphonie
concertante for violin and viola, in which both solo instruments are tuned up a
semitone. Two versions of the Sinfonia concertante exist in manuscript copies.
In one (US-Wc) the orchestra is in E and the soloists are in D; in the other (D-BFb), both
orchestra and soloists are in D.
Mozart's
Quintet in G minor for two violins, two violas and cello (k516,
1787) amply demonstrates the potential of the viola as a chamber music
instrument in the hands of a master. Particularly noteworthy is the practice,
possibly learnt from Michael Haydn, of highlighting the first violin and first
viola as soloists on an equal footing, while at the same time ensuring that
each instrument in the ensemble has an interesting part to play. Also worthy of
remark is the way that Mozart made the first viola serve as either a treble or
a bass: that is, as a bass to the trio of the upper three instruments or – a
marked contrast in tone-colour – as the treble to the lower three. The
resulting dark–light colour contrast of trio combinations is illustrated by the
opening bars of the work. Finally, in the slow movement, the contrasted key of
E is subdued still
more by Mozart's direction to use mutes on all the instruments (mutes being
rarely called for in 18th-century chamber music). The second subject is worked
out in a glorious duet between violin I (bar 27) and viola I a few bars later.
Even viola II has a moment or two of dramatic comment (e.g. bar 19) on the
musical action.
Several
viola methods, somewhat analogous to those for violin and cello, were published
at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries; they include
those by Michel Corrette (1773), Michel Woldemar (c1800), François Cupis
(attributed, 1803) and M.J. Gebauer (c1805).
Viola, §5: Repertory
(ii) From 1800.
Early
in the 19th century an outstanding method by A.B. Bruni (c1820) and
viola studies by Bartolomeo Campagnoli and J.-J.-B. Martinn were published. In
the 20th century the viola began to share in the technical advances of the
violin (most viola players having begun their training as violinists). The
trend towards virtuosity became much more pronounced in the 20th century, when,
for instance, players were obliged to cultivate the highest positions on the
lower three strings. The average orchestral viola player around 1900 was still
regarded as a cast-off from the violin section, but in the 20th century the
viola was increasingly called upon, especially the viola soloist in chamber
music, to perform special effects such as col legno bowings (e.g.
Schoenberg), rebounding pizzicatos (Bartók), glissandos, harmonics and so on.
Developments in fingering were similar to those for the violin (see Fingering, §II, 2(ii)) and are enshrined in the methods of Dolejši (1939) and
Primrose (1960) as well as in the 20th-century repertory.
Berlioz
had already shown (1834) how magical a sul ponticello could sound in an
arpeggio passage for solo viola against muted orchestral strings (in ‘Marche
des pèlerins’ from his Harold en Italie). These demands by composers
meant that an efficient technique was slowly being acquired by viola players in
all types of instrumental music. After Beethoven, the string parts in the music
of such composers as Berlioz, Brahms, Verdi and Tchaikovsky gradually increased
in difficulty. In Wagner and Richard Strauss and later in Mahler and Ravel, and
of course 12-note compositions, the demands made on viola players are greater
still, tending at times to equal those on the other strings. In much
20th-century chamber music, for instance, the technical demands on the viola
are often as great as on the other parts, notably in Schoenberg's String Trio
or Bartok's string quartets (particularly nos.3–6). In the case of modern
concertos the viola soloist is normally called on for an imposing array of
accomplishments of the left and right hand – in the relatively rare (though
increasingly frequent) viola recital, one may occasionally hear such a tour
de force as a transcription of a Paganini caprice.
While
19th-century composers seldom called on the viola soloist for the same degree
of pyrotechnics as the violin, they became more appreciative of the viola's
potential with respect to tone-colour and sonority. Brahms is a good example.
In the Agitato movement of his String Quartet in B op.67, he assigned the opening solo to the
viola accompanied by muted violins and cello – a remarkable essay in the
colouristic use of the viola ranging over all four strings. In his Serenade
op.16 Brahms omitted the violins, featuring the violas as a treble part as he
did also in the first movement of the German Requiem.
Treated
mainly as a tenor in early times, the viola had also been used occasionally as
an alto or even, for special effect, as a bass (see examples of Vivaldi and
Purcell cited in §(i) above). The cultivation of tone-colour of different
registers after 1800 led composers to use the viola as any voice-part of the
ensemble for momentary effect. To increase power and sonority, special violas
such as Hermann Ritter's viola alta were introduced into the orchestra.
Since sonority and colour of the string section were important components of
Romantic music in achieving its effect, some later composers who disliked this
type of music – Stravinsky, for example – sought to use the strings more drily
or even percussively rather than melodically or colouristically, or did not use
them at all (his Symphony of Psalms is scored without violins or
violas).
For
reasons already suggested, there are dozens of violin concertos for every one
for the viola (Drüner lists 141 between 1740 and 1840, knows of none between
1840 and 1870, and finds a gradually increasing number after 1870). Indeed it
would be difficult to call to mind more than one ‘famous’ viola concerto in the
19th century: namely, Berlioz's Harold en Italie, and that a viola
concerto disguised as a programme symphony. Even this work originated through a
special set of circumstances. Paganini, having acquired a fine Stradivari
viola, commissioned Berlioz to write a viola concerto for him. Harold en
Italie was the result, but Paganini declined to play it because, as he told
Berlioz, ‘I am not given enough to do’. Berlioz, however, was by no means
uninterested in the viola. ‘Of all the instruments in the orchestra’, he
stated, ‘the viola is the one whose excellent qualities have been longest
ignored’. In Harold (and elsewhere) Berlioz wrote marvellously for the
instrument, not only for the solo part but also for the orchestral violas –
consider the main ‘Harold’ melody, the cadenza at the end of the first adagio,
or the whole of the ‘Marche des pèlerins’.
In
the 20th century compositions featuring the solo viola have become more
numerous because, among other reasons, the presence of such outstanding players
as Lionel Tertis, William Primrose and Paul Hindemith has encouraged composers.
Tertis, in particular, inspired a number of pieces by British composers,
including (though indirectly through Thomas Beecham) the Walton Viola Concerto,
one of the best in modern times. (This work was offered to Tertis for its first
performance but was actually first played with Hindemith as soloist, 3 October
1929.) The posthumous Bartók Viola Concerto (‘prepared for publication by Tibor
Serly’ in 1950, with a revised version by Nelson Dellamaggiore and Peter Bartók
in 1995) was commissioned by and written for Primrose, who first performed it.
Hindemith, equally distinguished as composer and viola player, wrote a number
of solo works for viola, which, in the older tradition of the
composer-performer like Mozart, he played himself. Among these are four viola
concertos, six pieces for viola and piano and four for unaccompanied viola.
Many other distinguished composers might be mentioned for their viola
compositions, including Berio, Bloch, Britten, Henze, Milhaud, Penderecki,
Piston, Rochberg, Schnittke, Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams.
In
spite of the relatively numerous 19th- and 20th-century pieces originally
written for the viola as a soloist in one capacity or another, perhaps the
instrument is most at home (and treated in the most congenial fashion by
composers) in chamber music. Among the many chamber-music combinations,
composers have evidently written for the viola the most frequently and with the
greatest devotion in that most perfect of musical mediums, the string quartet,
as a number of the finest works of the most celebrated composers attest: among
them Beethoven, Schubert, Dvořák, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, Bartók,
Dohnanyi, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Schoenberg and Webern. The viola is common
in quartets and quintets with piano, and has fared well in string quintets and
sextets (two violas), some of which approach orchestral sonority (e.g. those of
Brahms).
Composers
tended, conversely, to shy away somewhat from the viola as a solo instrument in
works involving fewer instruments, where each became more prominent to the
whole. Thus the string trio of violin, viola and cello is much less commonly
used by composers than the piano trio (violin, cello, piano). Similarly, there
are few sonatas in the 19th century originally written for viola and piano:
even the two by Brahms (op.120, 1895), arranged by the composer from his
clarinet and piano sonatas, do not have quite the verve and freshness of the
original versions. The same might be said of several other Brahms chamber works
in which he substituted viola for clarinet. The viola is, however, sometimes used
with marked success in song accompaniments, as in Brahms's Geistliches
Wiegenlied, where the singer is accompanied by piano and viola obbligato.
In
any case, the literature available to the modern viola player is very
considerable, ranging from simple ensemble parts to concertos of great
difficulty, and the instrument may be said to have progressed immensely since
1750 in realizing its potential of tone and technique.
Viola
BIBLIOGRAPHY
a: general
MersenneHU
MGG2 (W. Sawodny; also
‘Streichinstrumentenbau’, T. Drescher)
SachsH
H. Berlioz: Grand traité
d’instrumentation et d’orchestration modernes (Paris, 1843, 2/1855/R; Eng. trans., 1856, rev.
2/1882/R by J. Bennett)
H. Ritter: Die
Geschichte der Viola alta (Leipzig, 1876/R)
H. Ritter: Die
fünfsaitige Alt-Geige (Bamberg, 1898)
E. van der
Straeten:
‘The Viola’, The Strad, xxiii–xxvi (1912–16) [series of articles]
F.H. Martens: String
Mastery (New York, 1923)
W. Altmann: ‘Zur Geschichte der Bratsche und der Bratschisten’, AMz, lvi (1929), 971–2
W. Altmann, ed.: Die
Bratsche: Mitteilungsblatt des Bratschisten-Bundes
(Leipzig, 1929–30)
L. Tertis: Beauty of
Tone in String Playing (London, 1938; repr. in My Viola and I (London, 1974))
J.A. Watson: ‘Mozart and the Viola’, ML, xxii (1941), 41–53
E.N. Doring: How Many
Strads? (Chicago, 1945)
H. Besseler: Zum Problem
der Tenorgeige (Heidelberg, 1949)
L. Tertis: Cinderella
No More (London, 1953, enlarged 1974 as My Viola and I) [autobiography, with
valuable appx and work-lists]
W. Piston: Orchestration (New York, 1955)
G. Pasqualini: ‘Referendum internazionale sulla viola moderna’,
Santa Cecilia, viii (1959), 81–3
H. Kunitz: Violine/Bratsche (Leipzig, 1960)
G. Pasqualini: ‘Risultati sul referendum’, Santa Cecilia, ix (1960), 73–4
C.M. Hutchins: ‘The Physics of Violins’, Scientific American, ccvii/5 (1962), 78–84, 87–93
D.D. Boyden: ‘The Tenor Violin: Myth, Mystery, or Misnomer’,
Festschrift Otto Erich Deutsch,
ed. W. Gerstenberg, J. LaRue and W. Rehm (Kassel, 1963), 273–9
D.D. Boyden: The History
of Violin Playing from its Origins to 1761 (London, 1965/R)
A. Baines: European and
American Musical Instruments (London, 1966/R)
S.M. Nelson: The Violin
and Viola (New York, 1972)
M. Rosenblum: ‘The Viola Research Society’, American String Teacher, xxiii/2 (1973), 29–30
A. Arcidiacono: La viola:
gli strumenti musicali (Milan, 1974)
L. Tertis: My Viola and
I: a Complete Autobiography (London, 1974)
S. Marcuse: A Survey of
Musical Instruments (Newton Abbot and New York, 1975)
L.C. Witten: ‘Apollo, Orpheus, and David’, JAMIS, i (1975), 5–55
Y. Menuhin and W. Primrose: Violin and
Viola (London, 1976/R)
W. Primrose: Walk on the
North Side: Memoirs of a Violist (Provo, UT, 1978)
F. Zeyringer: The Problem
of Viola Size (New York, 1979)
M.W. Riley: ‘The Early Development of the Viola by Luthiers of the Brescian and
Cremonese Schools’, Journal of
the Violin Society of America, v/1 (1980), 120–52
M.W. Riley: The History
of the Viola (Ypsilanti, MI, 1980) [incl. full bibliography]
D. Gill: ‘Vihuelas, Violas and the Spanish Guitar’, EMc, ix (1981), 455–62
M. Awouters: ‘X-raying Musical Instruments: a Method in Organological Study’, RBM, xxxvi–xxxviii
(1982–4), 207–15, esp. 213
M. Robinson: The Violin
and Viola (London, 1983)
S. Ponjatovskij: Istorija
al'tovogo iskusstva [The history of the viola] (Moscow,
1984)
M.W. Riley: The Teaching
of Bowed Instruments from 1511 to 1756 (Ann Arbor, 1986)
C. Beare: Capolavori
di Antonio Stradivari (Milan, 1987)
D. Dalton: Playing the
Viola: Conversations with William Primrose (New York, 1988)
C.A. Johnson: Viola Source
Materials: an Annotated Bibliography (diss., Florida
State U., 1988)
A.M. Woodward: ‘Observations about the Status, Instruments, and Solo Repertoire of
Violists in the Classic Period’, Journal of the Violin Society of America,
ix/2 (1988), 81–104
F. Zeyreinger: Die Viola da
braccio (Munich, 1988)
M.W. Riley: The History
of the Viola, ii (Ypsilanti, MI, 1991)
M. Tiella and C. Beare: Strumenti di
Antonio Stradivari (Cremona, 1991)
D. Pounds: The American
Viola Society: a History and Reference (n.p., 1992, 2/1995)
M. Fox: ‘Crazy but Correct Viola’, New York Times (4 Aug
1997)
b: methods
M. Corrette: Méthodes
pour apprendre à jouer de la contre-basse à 3, à 4, et à 5 cordes, de la quinte
ou alto et de la viole d'Orphée (Paris, 1773/R)
Complete
Instructions for the Tenor Containing such Rules and Examples as are necessary
for Learners with a Selection of Favorite Song-Tunes, Minuets, Marches, etc. (London,
n.d. [between 1782 and 1798])
M. Woldemar: Méthode
d’alto contenant les premiers élémens de la musique
(Paris, c1800)
?F. Cupis: Méthode
d’alto précédé d’un abrégé des principes de musique de différents airs nouveaux
dont plusieurs avec variations et terminé par un long caprice ou étude (?Paris, ?1803)
M.J. Gebauer: Méthode
d’alto contenant les principes de musique avec les gammes accompagnées dans
tous les tons suives de petites pièces en duo tirées des plus célèbres auteurs
tels que Haydn, Mozart, Boccherini &c (Paris, c1805)
A.B. Bruni: Méthode pour
l’alto viola contenant les principes de cet instrument suivis de 25 études (Paris, c1820)
J.-J.-B. Martinn: Nouvelle
méthode d’alto contenant des gammes et exercises dans tous les tons, douze
leçons en duos et trois sonates faciles (Paris, n.d.
[between 1826 and 1830])
R. Dolejší: Modern Viola
Technique (Chicago, 1939/R)
W. Primrose: Technique is
Memory: a Method for Violin and Viola Players Based on Finger Patterns (London, 1960)
H. Barrett: The Viola:
Complete Guide for Teachers and Students (Birmingham,
AL, 1972, 2/1978)
S.L. Kruse: The Viola
School of Technique: Etudes and Methods Written between 1780 and 1860 (Ann Arbor, 1986)
c: periodicals
The Strad (1890/91–)
Hindemith-Jb (1971–)
Newsletter of
the American Viola Research Society (1973–8)
Journal of the
Violin Society of America (1975–)
British Viola
Research Society Newsletter (1976–83)
Newsletter of
the American Viola Society (1978–85)
The Viola:
Yearbook of the International Viola Research Society (Kassel, 1979–)
British Viola
Society Newsletter (1983–)
Journal of the
American Viola Society (1985–)
Strings (1986–)
d: repertory
R. Clarke: ‘The History of the Viola in Quartet Writing’, ML, iv (1923), 6–17
W.W. Cobbett: Cyclopedic
Survey of Chamber Music (London, 1929–30/R)
W. Altmann and V. Borissowsky: Literaturverzeichnis
für Bratsche und Viola d’amore (Wolfenbüttel, 1937)
H. Letz: Music for
the Violin and Viola (New York, 1948)
F. Zeyringer: Literatur
für Viola (Hartberg, 1963, suppl. 1965, 3/1985)
K. Ewald: Musik für
Bratsche (Liestal, 1975)
T. Serly: ‘A Belated Account of the Reconstruction of a 20th Century Masterpiece’, College Music Symposium, xv (1975), 7–25 [on
Bartók’s Viola Concerto]
T.J. Tatton: English
Viola Music, 1870–1937 (diss., U. of Illinois, 1976)
U. Drüner: ‘Das Viola-Konzert vor 1840’, FAM, xxviii (1981), 153–76
L. Inzaghi and L.A. Bianchi: Alessandro
Rolla (1757–1841): vita e catalogo tematico delle opere
(Milan, 1981)
W. Lebermann: ‘Das Viola-Konzert vor 1840: Addenda und Corrigenda’, FAM, xxx (1983), 220–21
B.R. Toskey: Concertos
for Violin and Viola: a Comprehensive Encyclopedia
(Seattle, 1983)