JAVS Spring 2013

T HE V IOLA IN B ERLIOZ ’ S H AROLD IN I TALY

After acquiring a Stradivarius viola, Nicolò Paganini asked Berlioz to write a viola work for him to play. Berlioz attempted to combine this request with his new concept for a viola solo with an orchestral accompaniment, which would be written in a way as to “leave the orchestra full freedom of action.” 2 The new approach resulted in a work that was closer to the symphonic genre than that of the viola concerto Paganini was expecting. According to Berlioz, when the violinist saw how little the soloist had to play, he abandoned the project. 3 Free to do as he liked, Berlioz carried out this new idea of a symphonic depiction of scenes of Italy with the isolated, Romantic wanderer Harold as a solo viola. While the unique genre of Harold in Italy raises many performance practice issues, this article will focus only on those associated with performing the viola solo and how these issues are important for a historically informed performance. Discussion will focus on the placement of the soloist in relation to the orchestra, as well as who played the solo part dur ing Berlioz’s lifetime and who typically plays it today; stylistic concerns in relation to the solo part and an examination of the role of the viola as a solo instru ment in the nineteenth century; and the performance of the viola solo with piano, either the transcription by Franz Liszt or the piano reduction by Hugh Macdonald in the New Berlioz Edition . Finally, this article will explore the performance of the “Paganini version,” an optional passage in the first movement published in the New Berlioz Edition and recorded by violist David Aaron Carpenter. By looking at these issues, as well as modern conventions, violists inter ested in performing this work will gain a historic per spective on these performance issues.

Hector Berlioz

by AmandaWilton

Hector Berlioz’s Harold in Italy depicts Byron’s anti hero Harold imprisoned in a life of Romantic isola tion. While Berlioz did not explicitly use Byron’s epic-length poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage as a program for the work, he referenced the title charac ter in order to draw a connection between the liter ary work and his own identification with the “melancholy dreamer” in the music. 1 Berlioz chose the viola to embody the title character Harold not only because of the instrument’s distinctive melan choly sound, but also because the cultural identity associated with the viola and viola players of the nineteenth century ideally personified the character of Harold as distant, isolated, neglected, and the outsider of the orchestra.

Placement of the Soloist

Harold in Italy is scarcely unknown or obsolete in the symphonic repertoire. In Berlioz’s time it was

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