JAVS Fall 2022

For the 2021 Primrose Competition, I presented Act 2, pared down for viola and piano. (I chose Act 2 since it is invariably the most captivating act of the opera, plus there was a time limit.) There are 25 staves in the thickest sections of the score, which makes the caveat clear: present as much of the music as possible with only two instruments. It’s easy enough to capture the harmony and melody with two instruments, but much trickier to preserve spirit and the drama, and even trickier still to render the parts as fluid and facile as possible so they can be played with abandon by the performers. My first tries of simply studying the score, casting stuff in notation software and hoping for the best, proved fruitless. I needed to test, then overhaul, then re-test, then fine-tune each bar to make sure that every inch of the piece would be genuinely fun to play. I wanted the parts to fit well enough in the hand so that any given section could be exciting to play without being too stressful and technically nescient.

Below is an annotated map of the score from one of Act 2’s climaxes. The highlighted colors illustrate which part I delegated to which instrument. The choices stemmed from what captured the drama, what highlighted the counterpoint I liked the best, but most of all, what was most fun to play. With an emphasis on having fun with it, the result was certainly my favorite part to play. I must emphasize that this delegation process was far less academic than I have perhaps made it out to be— all decisions were all borne out of becoming sincerely familiar with the score, fooling around on my instrument, and scribbling down what “sparked the most joy.” I truly believe that the best arrangements are conceived as close to performance practice as possible. If it’s a joy to play, it will invariably be a joy to listen to.

Figure 1: Act 2, Puccini’s Tosca Score Excerpt.

34

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 38, No. 2, Fall 2022