JAVS Fall 2012

row that comes from loving. Only music can express it.” 11 She may have been referring to the loss of two of her daughters when they were teenagers during the 1940s (one had tuberculosis and the other died in a tragic accident when a gun went off by mis take). She also lost her husband, Peter Kerr, in 1939. As in the Habañera , the violist resembles a Spanish singer, especially in the declamatory ad libitum pas sage toward the end of the piece (ex. 5). Like many of the Impressionists, Kerr employed different modes; Las Fatigas del Querer seems to be in A Phrygian or possibly D harmonic minor. This work is very convincing in using the ability of the viola to pull at the listener’s emotional heartstrings and imi tate the human voice. It should be noted that the treatment of the folk song in the work of the same name for violin and piano is entirely different from that for viola and piano. The Berceuse for viola and piano is a beautifully crafted character piece of the French Impressionist genre. This charming work is similar in style to the Berceuse , op. 16, by Gabriel Fauré. Like many of Kerr’s works, the rhythm in each measure of her Berceuse is slightly different than the last. The Berceuse mostly stays in the lower positions but occasionally explores the higher range of the viola.

The Lament is a much darker piece than the other viola works. The score for Lament is still in sketch form, and it is possible that she was still working on the piece, since she never made an ink copy of the viola and piano parts. She seems to have chosen F minor, a decidedly less vibrant key for the viola, to deliberately create a somber quality. The harmonic texture is moody and brooding like those found in Brahms’s songs. There is a brief respite from the sorrow of F minor when the work modulates to a more hopeful C major section. There is a return to F minor through a long bridge passage, and the piece wanders, evading familiar pas sages. Thus the listener has an unrequited feeling, and the musical tension is never relieved. Louise Kerr makes excel lent use of both the darker side of the viola C string as well as the poignant A string (ex. 6). The Toccata for viola and piano is a fast fantasia that keeps with the through-composed nature of most toccatas. She makes use of the Phrygian mode but keeps to the more vibrant keys of C and Dmajor. The opening passage of the Toccata is technically demanding, with the violist scaling the instrument in rapid sixteenth-note passages. The pianist is also kept very busy with numerous sequenced patterns in the bass. There is a contrastingly slower lyrical section, and then the rapid sixteenth notes return for the climax of the piece.

Example 5. Louise Lincoln Kerr, Las Fatigas del Querer , mm. 61–72 (viola part).

Example 6. Louise Lincoln Kerr, Lament , mm. 3–12 (viola part).

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