JAVS Spring 2001

17

AN OvERVIEW oF TwENTIETH-CENTURY VIoLA WoRKS PART I

by jacob Glick

IP

Editor's Note: Thank you to Myron Rosenblum and the family ofthe late jacob Glick for sharing this collection ofpersonal observations on a wide array oftwentieth-century works. 'Jack was afine violist who was very committed and involved with contemporary music for a good part ofhis professional life. The year before he died, he told me he was working on this piece ... I think it is a very fine and valuable piece by one who knew this music well and performed it so beauti fUlly. "-Rosenblum. Publishers have been included as available. PART I The twentieth century has seen the emergence of the viola as a solo instrument. Much of the credit for this metamorphosis must be attrib uted to three prime movers-the great per formers- William Primrose and Lionel Terris, plus the composer/ performer Paul Hindemith. Only in the last two decades have I come to fully appreciate the large contribution of England's composers inspired by the artistry of Tertis. From the very onset of the century, composers such as Arnold Bax, Arthur Bliss, York Bowen, Frank Bridge, Benjamin Dale, Ralph Vaughan Williams and countless other of his compatriots wrote and dedicated com positions to him. I would venture to say that he had more compositions inscribed to him than Eugene Ysaye received from his French and Belgian composing confreres. In the USA, William Primrose carried the viola torch to the highest levels as a soloist with several major orchestras, as a recording artist and also as a viola professor at the prestigious Curtis Institute. During the years 1929 to 1936, Paul Hindemith premiered Sir William Walton's Viola Concerto (England, 1929) and his own Concert Music for Viola and Large Chamber Orchestra, Op. 48 (Berlin, 1930), Der

Schwanendreher concerto (Amsterdam, 1935), and Trauermusik, written upon the death of King George V (England, 1936). Included in the following discussion of selected viola compositions are several that I have premiered and performed. I commis sioned certain works; other pieces were dedi cated to me and a few were recorded commer cially, namely, the Henry Brant Hieroglyphics 3; Jean Eichelberger Ivey's Aldebaran; and Robert Moevs' Variazioni Sopra Una Melodia for Viola & Cello. USA VIOLA PIECES Composition for Viola and Piano by Milton Babbitt was written in 1950. It was exciting to work out and perform this piece. Both per formers must use a score in performance and I recall using double-headed arrow symbols to mark the metric simultaneities with the piano part and circling in bright red pencil some of the sudden dynamic changes which came upon me quicker than dynamics in late Beethoven string quartets. Certain measures with time signatures of three four plus one-eighth trans lated (for me) into two quarters plus a dotted quarter (or the thinking of an elongated final quarter note). This allowed for less jagged counting in my mind (it still added up to seven eighth notes.)[New York: C E Peters Corp., 1972} Another Babbitt solo viola work, written almost forty years later, is the Play It Again, Sam (1989). This was composed for Samuel Rhodes of the Juilliard Quartet and was recorded-superbly-by Lois Martin. [New York: C E Peters Corp., 1994} Ma Lune Maligne, a piece for viola, flute, harp and percussion, was composed in 1980-1981 by Linda Bouchard, who is a French Canadian composer and was complet ing her Master's program at the Manhattan School of Music when she wrote this work.