JAVS Fall 1995

39

TEACHING MOZART ON THE VIOLA: A REASONABLE COMPROMISE?

byDwight Pounds

We violists are perhaps proud of the fact that several composers preferred the viola when they had occasion to perform, among them Bach, Mozart, Dvorak, Britten, and Hinde rnith. Bach spoke lovingly of his viola, we are told by Anna Magdalene, and Mozart was known to join Haydn and Dittersdorf in chamber music as a violist. All used the instrument with effect and originality in orchestral and chamber works but, with the exception of Hindernith, wrote few or no solo works. This contradiction is especially true of Mozart, whose primary works featuring the viola were duos with the violin, including the Symphonie Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, K. 364 and the Duos for Violin and Viola, K. 423-424. Indeed, the Sym phonie Concertante and the second Duo con stitute Primrose's only recordings of works by Mozart featuring the viola. The conscientious teacher eventually must face potentially controversial choices regarding the fact that Mozart left no known sonatas or concerti written specifically for the viola. What are the options for the viola teacher with talented and inquisitive students who want, need, and deserve a hands-on solo expe rience with Mozart? It would appear that first, young violists could study the viola works of Mozart's lesser contemporaries, such as Hummel, Hoffmeister, Pleyel, Vanhal, Zelter, J.C. Bach/Casadesus-even Stamitz-many of whom wrote important and quite playable concerti, and learn Mozartian style by osmo sis. While several of these composers' concerti are certainly worth learning and performing, particularly the Hoffmeister and Stamitz, they deserve to be studied in their own right rather than as Mozartian substitutes. A second option would be to confine the choices to the cited works of Mozart and gradually incorpo rate his trios, quartets, and quintets in the

study. Such a course would be prudent and perhaps musically and politically correct, but alas, it would avoid the goal of providing a solo experience on the viola with Mozart. The remaining option is totally pragmatic and neither prudent nor musically correct in the minds of many violists: to utilize violin tran scriptions for this purpose. While less contro versial perhaps for instructors of both violin and viola, this move is difficult at best for an increasing number of viola specialists, and possibly unthinkable for at least some teach ers in each category. Two highly honored violists/teachers, William Primrose and Lillian Fuchs, can be found on opposite sides of this curious di lemma. Primrose's position is well known: the transcription of a work a perfect fifth lower offended his sense of absolute pitch, causing him a degree of disorientation and aesthetic, if not physical, anguish when subjected to such a performance.' Fuchs, on the other hand, apparently driven by a more pragmatic approach to the problem, recognized that the only way to create a viola solo work by Mozart was to adapt a suitable piece written for the instrument most similar to the viola in technical and musical demands-the violin. This is neither to suggest that Primrose never made such an acknowledgment nor to imply that Fuchs was unaffected aesthetically by transcriptions. The difference is that William Primrose was not inclined to pay the aesthetic price of hearing or playing music transcribed a perfect fifth away from its original key.' But not everyone with perfect pitch is bothered by transcriptions away from the home key Lionel Tertis, for instance. To Lillian Fuchs the gain of a convincing, playable viola work by the greatest of the mid-Classical masters was a reasonable sacri fice. Nevertheless, she was very careful in the