JAVS Fall 1996

57

ABOUT VIOLISTS

V iolists are invited to attend the 1997 VIOLA DAY at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston this coming spring. Forty violists from beginners to professionals attended the 1996 event. The Boston Viola Quartet performed, and Consuela Sherba, of

Brown University and the Charleston Quar tet, lectured. To participate in the 1997 event, contact Nora Spencer at the URI Music Department Fine Arts Center, Kingston, Rhode Island, telephone: (401) 874-2431; e-mail: nspe3366@uriacc. uri. edu

I n southern California's concert atmosphere of recent months, the viola has appeared most prominently as an ensemble instrument. Viola recitals have been unusually scarce. But 1996 has been a banner year for premieres of works for viola and orchestra by composers well known in the area. In January, we heard Cary Belling's Concerto for Viola, with Karen Elaine as soloist. In February, Dan Thomason gave the first performance of Terry McQuilkin's Viola Concerto, and Evan Wilson premiered Jeremy Lubbock's Dialogue for Viola and Strings on 6 November 1996. Mr. Wilson is the principal violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and pro fessor of viola at UCLA. The string section of the UCLA Philharmonia Orchestra, under the direction of Jon Robertson, performed this last-mentioned work in Schoenberg Hall on the Westwood campus. With many stu dent players of the Philharmonia not neces sarily preparing for professional careers in music, the evening's program (which also included a premiere of Jay Flood's Symphony No. 2) demonstrated an unexpected willing ness to explore the newest of twentieth-century repertory. Mr. Lubbock, who has lived in Los Angeles since the late 1970s, is a prominent and suc cessful member of the commercial music community. He has established himself as a composer and arranger for films and popu lar recording artists, with a wide range of styles-"from Kiri Te Kanawa to Andy Williams, to Tremaine Hawkins," as printed

in the program's biographical note. Among many other awards, Mr. Lubbock won a Grammy in 1993 for "best arrangement accompanying vocals," with a song called "When I Fall in Love." Without these clues from the program notes, the audience might never have guessed Lubbock's connection to the popular music industry, because his Dialogue betrayed no hint of pop style, jazz, commercialism, or easy derivative imitation. The only exception to this assertion might be that the Dialogue is well scored for the instru ments used, so that good-sounding string writing prevails. In his performance of Lubbock's Dialogue, Mr. Wilson took advantage of the ample opportunity this piece affords for beautiful solo viola sound. He plays the Peregrina di Zanetto viola, made available to the principal violist of the Philharmonic; it has a huge, even luscious, personality. Its distinctive shape, size, and proportions identify it as coming from the era before Amati and Stradivari. The Dialogue for Viola and Strings is about twenty minutes in length, consisting of a series of episodes resembling a conversation. The episodes, replete with rhythmic motives, are delineated by tempo changes. Sometimes the solo viola and the ensemble of accom panying strings "talk'' at the same time, but in this premiere performance the soloist still projected easily. The piece contains some cadenza-like sections and some double stopping, but "extended techniques" are not a