JAVS Spring 2013

NS : But we should just say this again—because I’ve said it a lot in interviews—a viola sounds a lot like a woman singing low or a man singing high. Like, it’s that weird wrong size of thing for its body trapped in the wrong thing—which is really good. um, so I started working with Nico mostly because it was well-known that he could write quick things if your recital program was too short. So I asked him to write me something because my recital program was too short. And actually that first thing . . .

NS : Which is exactly right—when you play high on the viola, it sounds higher than it is.

NM : yeah. Just because of the size of the body and the strings and whatever. And so that was an early (for me) exploration of what the viola can do specifi cally, and what is the emotional content of an instru ment that is kind of between sizes and between, um . . . functions. [ Laughs. ] NS : What was also really great about that piece for me was that we had been working together enough at that point that you gave me a lot of freedom in that piece—like, you wrote me lines that I could really— NS : yeah, own. Which has been really great, and I think that has been something that has continued in our collaborations. NM : And also it was a collaboration that included other people—there was Antony, there was also Valgeir [Sigurðsson]—it was one of those things where it stopped being, “Here’s this,” and started being something much more . . . NM : Own.

NM : Was Keep in Touch . No, it was the duet—

NS : The duet was the first real piece—for viola and cello.

NM : Right, which is hard and awkward. The first kind of chunky piece was Keep in Touch (ex. 1), which basically—I was thinking about what to do for the viola and basically it’s sacred music—it’s a big ol’ passacaglia, it’s very church-y, and it pairs—

NS : It’s got a little organ in it.

NM : It’s got a little organ, and it pairs the viola voice with Antony [Hegarty]’s voice—it’s an interesting thing because a lot of people talk about Antony’s voice as if he’s singing in an androgynous sort of range, but actually his singing voice is low—it just sounds high because of what he’s doing with the color.

NS : Well this is something that you’ve done since I’ve known you, which is that you sort of create

Example 1. Nico Muhly, Keep in Touch , mm. 9–33.

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