JAVS Spring 2019

the 44 th International Viola Congress in Wellington, New Zealand in September 2017, and the orchestral version a year later in Norfolk, Virginia. As its title suggests, the piece was inspired by the progress of the eponymous river through West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Written in a continuous 15-minute span, its three main sections feature atmospheric harmonies that sound not a little like Bartókian “night music”; a bitter-sweet tune in the central section is reminiscent of Stephen Foster’s songs; the faster concluding section is of a more virtuosic hue, including chords, octaves and sundry passage work. Andrea Houde takes all this comfortably in her stride, while showing a beautiful lyrical vein throughout the recital. She finds an appropriately light touch for Cutter’s pieces, including some convincing “strumming” strokes in the Serenade, in which the viola accompanies the piano. Sung Jung Lee is an empathic partner throughout. David Bynog tells us everything we need to know in his typically erudite liner notes, which greatly add to the value of this most enjoyable issue.

This CD proved difficult to write about because I was constantly tempted to put aside block and pencil, and just enjoy the playing of this wonderfully well-attuned duo—I ended up listening several times to the whole recital as to a well-planned concert. The beginning of Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata is “impetuoso” indeed in these performers’ hands. Dimitri Murrath takes due note of the composer’s indications regarding fingerings and choice of strings; she was a Tertis student and it shows. Murrath finds beautiful colors throughout, most seductively in the third movement—this must be the bit that led those Berkshire Competition jurors to attribute the piece to Ravel! The Hindemith Sonata features also several moments of magic, such as the transition from the first to the second movement, where Murrath makes that one note flip from A sharp to B flat by a change in timbre. The whole sonata pours forth in one piece, its variations growing seamlessly out of each other. Vieuxtemps was principally a violinist but found a way of writing virtuoso music that is ideally suited to the viola. Murrath relishes the C string strains of the solemn introduction as much as the passage-work of the movement’s vivacious main section. The melancholic musings of the Barcarolla are wistfully voiced, and the final movement’s initially tripping steps develop a huge momentum. The shorter pieces work well as so many encores; Murrath works up quite a steam in the Élégie ’s final moments and exhibits admirable bowing control in the unaccompanied Capriccio . It seems strange to bill La nuit as a piece by Vieuxtemps—who only transcribed it—and relegate the actual composer to the small print. This, by the way, is the Frenchman Félicien David, not—as printed on the CD’s case—Mendelssohn’s friend Ferdinand of that ilk (the liner notes have it right). David’s “symphonic ode” Le désert would today be considered to be hopelessly beyond the PC pale as a piece of “cultural appropriation”, but the Hymn to the Night chosen by Vieuxtemps is a delightful vignette that brings one’s pulse rate back to normal after the virtuoso exertions of the previous pieces.

Beginnings —Clarke: Viola Sonata; Hindemith: Viola Sonata op. 11 No. 4; Vieuxtemps: Viola Sonata op. 36, Élégie op. 30, Capriccio in C minor; David (arr. Vieuxtemps): La Nuit . Dimitri Murrath, viola; Vincent Planès, piano. Ulysses Music Records UMR 100

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Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 35, No. 1, Spring 2019