JAVS Fall 1990

41

There are good fingering suggestions, although everyone will not agree with them. This transcription sounds really well, and somehow avoids the impression "Myl, that sounds odd on the viola:' The soloist's music is presented in a four-page fold-out format; a nice touch (typical of Viola World thoughtfulness), because there is no opportunity to turn pages. There is one oddity. The Schott's Sohne edition of 1910, which must be the origianl one, shows a forte in the piano for the last four measures, and another forte on the last chord. For some reason Mr. Arnold prescribes a piano, four before the end, and a completely original poco rit., with a hairpin crescendo, leading to the last chord, but no forte marking. Is it really fitting that the viola version of "Love's Joy" doesn't end with a bang? Serenata Cantabile is a paraphrase of the Adagio second movement of Mozart's D-Major Quartet for flute, violin, viola and cello. The title is apparently new, but appropriate. The B-minor key of the movement is retained, and the viola takes the flute part an octave lower than the original. The tricky part of this transcription is the piano accompaniment, as the original is marked "sempre p, pizzicato," throughout. This is a texture hard to imitate with any medium, so Mr. Arnold doesn't even try; he takes the harmonies and the voicing as an outline and invents a pianistic accompaniment which is related, but quite different than the original. The piece is very brief, and surely is intended for students. The editing is as careful and reasonable as we have come to expect from Viola World editions. It includes some cautious artistic exploration of upper positions, called for SerenataCantabile,K. 285 by .Wolfgang •...Amadeus ... Mozart. ::.:.··: -.5ff!p.sc;ripeci.: ••• for· •••••.• yipla ••••.• by.. J\lan ••••••••••• W§~l~i~*.~~~dr~aBif~~ci;o~?t:

Frank Bridge was a prominent presence in the musical life of London in the first half of this century. A violist, conductor and composer, he was for many years a prominent string quartet violist. His one composition pupil turned out rather well: Benjamin Britten. Bridge wrote little for his own instrument, which is our loss, judging from this short aria, rescued in a manuscript fragment from the Reference Library of the Royal College of Music by Mr. Hindmarsh. Since it was unfinished he provided the last eighteen bars. It's a' straight-forward three-part song form, so this addition is really non-controversial. Speculation is that Allegretto is an early work, somewhere around 1905, according to the editorial note by Mr. Hindmarsh, and it is squarely in the Elgar-Stanford style...unmistakably British, sensitive, beautiful, wistful, idiomatic for the viola. Not at all the technically challenging, there is considerable ensemble interplay between viola and piano. It would be a fine vehicle for a not-too-advanced-student· or it could be used as a relaxed enco;e piece. It is really brief, and has no instrumental editing.

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Alan Arnold has given us a faithful, well-edited viola version of the Kreisler violin favorite. Here, it's in F-major rather than C, and the piano part has been thinned, some low notes put up an octave, some harmony redistributed. Most of the editing is in the piano-part, .seemingly with the intention of making it less competitive for the less- brilliant soloist.