JAVS Spring 2014

B OOK R EVIEW Viola Music and Chamber Music with Viola, Recorded in the 20th Century

Reviewed by David Hermann

so violists included in Viola Music enables the user to easily find any recording by a specific violist.

Viola Music and Chamber Music with Viola, Recorded in the 20th Century By Edward Strenkowski ISBN: 978-0-9696098-7-2 Price: $550 Violists and record collectors alike fondly remember the efforts of Dr. François de Beaumont, whose love of the uniquely beautiful sound of the viola led him to create in 1973 the first discography of works specifically featuring that instrument. Before his untimely passing in 1982, his Discographie sur l’Alto had been revised and expanded three times to include many unusual commercial viola recordings from all over the world—but only those released through the year 1980. For more than thirty years we have awaited a succes sor to Dr. de Beaumont’s pioneering efforts, and now I’m happy to report that there is a new viola discography that will be sure to please audiophiles and violists alike. The book is titled Viola Music and Chamber Music with Viola, Recorded in the 20th Century ; the author is Edward Strenkowski; and it is published in Canada by Records Past Publishing. Strenkowski was also the editor and publisher of the second edition of James Creighton’s monumental Discopædia of the Violin , so his credentials in the research of old recordings are well-established. Viola Music contains information on approximately thirty thousand original-issue recordings and reissues, and while Creighton’s Discopædia of the Violin was arranged by performer, Strenkowski has wisely chosen to arrange Viola Music by composer and repertoire, making it the ideal vehicle for teachers and students who wish to locate recordings for study purposes. In any event, a complete index of the two thousand or

Running to 819 pages, Viola Music and Chamber Music with Viola is the result of three decades of research dedicated to the art of the viola on record. Its scope is vast, comprising a list of recorded compo sitions in which the viola is at least one of the princi pal instruments used, as explained in the author’s introduction. This includes solo works, concerti, ensemble music employing two to ten instrumental ists, and orchestral compositions with prominent solos for the viola. (Those familiar with de Beaumont’s editions will remember that he only list ed chamber compositions involving no more than three interpreters, and even at that he excluded the traditional string trio as being perhaps too large a cat egory.) The one obvious concession to moderation in Viola Music is the absence of recordings of the tradi tional string quartet, which certainly makes sense to me; the sheer number of quartet recordings would have made Viola Music a very unwieldy volume. That said, there are still a great many chamber works included here that were not covered by de Beaumont. recording formats (everything from cylinders to CDs, reel tapes to Digital Compact Cassettes, and videotapes to DVDs), composer thematic catalog number designations, and other abbreviations and acronyms used in entries. Musical selections are properly identified to the extent that Schubert’s Ave Maria is correctly listed as Ellens Gesang , D. 839 (1825). But should you look under Ave Maria instead, you will be directed to the latter listing. This is but one indication of the length to which the author goes to make the text practical to use while maintaining accuracy in the listings. The introductory material includes a list of abbrevia tions for instruments and ensembles and symbols for

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