JAVS Spring 2020

The evening recital took place at the POSM Main Auditorium. Krzysztof Chorzelski started out the program with Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata for viola and piano. Chorzelski then played Joseph Phibbs’s Letters from Warsaw . Following was the Sonata for Viola and Piano, by Andrzej Czajkowski, a Polish pianist and composer. Chorzelski and his pianist Lech Napierala gave a strong performance of this work, which deserves more attention and performances. Though the author did not attend, the late evening ended with a magic show by violist Viacheslav Dinerchtein. These late-night events are always a highlight of every congress! Day Four The day was to have started with Emil Cantor’s lecture, Telemann as the first freelance composer. Unfortunately, Emil was not able to attend the congress. Simultaneous master classes were given by Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot and Stefano Carlini. Later in the morning Diane Phoenix-Neal premiered Krzysztof Wolek’s Shadowings for viola and electronics. Another world premiere followed of Kopczynski’s Sonata for viola and piano, performed by Wojciech Kolaczyk, viola, and Anna Paras, piano. Both works were very different than the other, the Wolek being quite modern in style and technique, and the Kopczynski being more tonal in nature. A very interesting lecture followed by Heng-Ching Fang from Birmingham, UK: Joseph Joachim’s Hebrew Melodies on a Poem of Byron, op. 9: A Performing Practices Study influenced by Moser and Joachim’s Violinschule and Joachim’s historical recording. It was refreshing to hear about performances practices after the baroque and classical eras. Long-time AVS and IVS icon Dwight Pounds presented his lecture, Legends of the International Viola Society . Pounds was joined by Dietrich Bauer, of Kassel, Germany. Bauer’s lineage as a violist goes back to the founding of the IVS—he was co-author with Franz Zeyringer of the Pöllauer Protokol, the genesis document of the IVS. Pounds and Bauer, because of their many years of service to the Society, were considered “honored guests” by the hosts. Pounds presented an exhaustive array of people who have contributed to the IVS since its founding. He also presented numerous slides taken from the thousands of photographs he has taken over the years at viola congresses.

Day Three The third day began with a lecture by Spanish violist María José Fueyo Muñiz, about original viola repertoire from the 17 th and 18 th centuries and its use in conservatory teaching. Following the morning lecture were two simultaneous master classes by Paul Cortese and Jorge Alves. Congress attendants then returned to the Hotel Ikar for a morning mixed recital. Performances included: Pawel Drozdowski performing Krzysztof Penderecki’s Cadenza ; Maria Bzowy performing Ewa Fabiańska-Jelińska’s Elegia and Jacek Rogala’s Witch Dance; Anna Krzyżak giving a knock-out performance of Garth Knox’s Fuga libra ; Łucja Jaskuła performing Janusz Stalmierski’s ForEve(r); and Pawel Riess and Wojciech Kaszuba performing Długosz’s Capriccio movente na altowke i elektronike , a work for viola and electronics. The afternoon started with Dutch Viola Society president Karin Dolman and her husband, luthier Jan van der Elst, presenting the results of their viola-building project at the 2018 IVC in Rotterdam, which had a 5-person team of luthiers building a viola in just five days. Playing on the completed viola, Dolman performed Paul Kopetz’s The Leprechaun . The viola is now available for loan to young violists. Across town, Carlos María Solare presented The Emancipation of the Viola within the Romantic Orchestra , using passages from Weber, Berlioz and Wagner as illustrations. Following this lecture was a very interesting presentation by Hillary Herndon, viola, and Bernadette Lo, piano. The team played excerpts from five works that may have been competitors in the 1919 Berkshire Composition Festival, and then asked the audience to name a “winner.” (The Clarke Sonata and Bloch Suite were not in the mix.) After a tally of the votes, the team performed the entire work of the winner, Sir Granville Bantock’s Sonata for viola and piano in F major. The afternoon recital included some very interesting and well-played solo works and duos for viola and violin. The first, with Annette-Barbara Vogel and Raquel Bastos, was Bagatelles for Violin and Viola by Australian composer Margaret Sutherland. Next was a solo by Bogusław Schaeffer, Cadenza , performed by Lech Balaban. Balaban was again joined by his son Jan, performing a premiere of Scherzo by Marcin Molski (present in the audience), and a virtuosic performance of the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia. Balaban continued with another virtuosic work, Arpeggio per viola by Alessandro Rolla.

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring 2020

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