JAVS Fall 1993

56

normal engraving, and is very easy to read. There are fingering mistakes: page 3, line 6, a finger mark "3"should be a "2"; on page 6, a clearly marked "5" is for a very unusual violist indeed, and on page 7, line 2, a Roman numeral III (calling for G-string) with a "3" over A-natural is no help at all. It should be IV These things happen. During the winter of 1954-55, the English composer and violist, Ralph Vaughan Williams visited the U. S. and was asked for advice by a composition student at Yale. "If a tune should occur to you, my boy, don't hesitate to write it down" (James Day. Vaughn Williams. J.M. Dent and Sons: London [1961]: 69) is probably excellent counsel, as valid today as it was then. commissioned by an orchestra, not Con Edison. To try to reduce this approach to orchestral color on the piano, for instance the shimmering effect of ringing percussion, the sustained broadcast of four horns or the rasps of heavily muted brass, is a task that will demand great compromise from the outset. If you add the problem of a huge rhythmic vocabulary and the complication of considerable simultaneous improvisation by many players, you might end up with a really pale imitation of the orchestral verSIon. This reduction is a fine effort. Presented in some sort of manuscript, but clearly readable, it plainly shows the rhythmic relationship between the viola and ensemble, which is a feature absent in the soloist's part. As the score states, the rhythmic notation moves between traditional and "analog" notation. There is brief explanation of the rhythmic signs used, and most are easily interpreted. There is wide use of one symbol not explained; a triangle on its apex on top of a bar-line extending through the staf£: which mayor may not enclose a number. Dynamics and expression marks are clearly shown and abundant. The reduction would be a huge aid in preparing this concerto for performance.

some might think it very sensitive. It cer tainly is melodically economical, but then it's a very short piece. It's also very playable. L'etude du coeur comes from a different emotional plane. "Passionate" is the indica tion at the beginning. Written without bar lines, it is otherwise conventionally notated (except for the diverging beams). It seems to be a string of through-composed, rhapsodic, unrelated phrases, the ends ofwhich are indicated with longer notes and commas or fermatas or both. The effect delivered-the mood of the piece-is angry and unpredict able because of nearly unremitting disso nance, both melodic and harmonic. Edited by Rosemary Glyde, the music looks like It's good to see that Boosey & Hawkes, publisher of the Bartok Viola Concerto, is continuing to put out ambitious large works for viola. The Druckman Concerto was commissioned by The Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York, and fin ished, according to the score, on 3 October 1978. The premiere was on 2 November 1978, by Sol Greitzer and the New York Philharmonic with James Levine conducting. The Primrose International Viola Archive has been provided a "promotional tape" with the performers unidentified, which surely must be a recording of that performance. If it is, Mr. Greitzer deserves high praise for coming to grips with this difficult, twenty-minute work in less than a month. The Concerto is scored for normal large orchestra (including tuba, bass clarinet, harp, piano and alto flute), with four percussion parts and twenty seven percussion instru ments specified. The orchestra is used to make music as you might hear it in a strictly electronic medium, which is not surprising, as Mr. Druckman has worked in that form extensively. In fact, it's hard to hear why this orchestra part was not presented elec tronically, as he has written for instruments and tape in the past. Of course, it was