JAVS Summer 2021

New Music

andPlay: “More Than” a Violin/Viola Duo

By Hannah Levinson

In the liner notes for playlist , andPlay’s debut album (2019, New Focus Recordings), composer/conductor Nicholas DeMaison compared the violin/viola duo to Aristophanes’s Ur-human, a one-headed being with four feet, four hands, four ears, and two faces looking in opposite directions. This metaphor perfectly describes andPlay; the ensemble functions as a singular entity that integrates the capabilities of two individual musicians. Though I may be biased as andPlay’s violist, this conceptualization of the string duo has informed the unique identity of our ensemble and the type of music that we perform and commission. This article will provide a brief introduction to andPlay and our guiding artistic principles, using commissioned works from our repertoire as examples. In 2012, eager to escape the oppressive summer New York City heat, violinist Maya Bennardo and I agreed to perform a concert of chamber works at a music-lover’s beachfront property in return for room and board for two nights. The positive audience response made us consider a possible future; we loved performing together and believed that this instrumentation had a lot of potential, but were faced with one major challenge: the repertoire. Historically, the violin/viola duo has not been a favored instrumentation, and therefore has limited existing repertoire. Most Classical-era works were intended for light chamber music for the courts, like Mozart’s two Duos for Violin and Viola, K. 423 and 424 (which he actually wrote to help complete his friend Michael Haydn’s overdue commission of six duos!). Other notable contributions to the repertoire have been gifts for or commissioned by couples or siblings. For example, Martinů’s Three Madrigals (Duo No. 1), H. 313 and Duo No. 2, H. 331 were both were written for Lillian Fuchs and her brother, Joseph. In more contemporary

andPlay: Maya Bennardo (violin, left), Hannah Levinson (viola, right). Photo by Shervin Lainez.

examples, Augusta Reed Thomas’s Silent Moon (2006) was commissioned by the performing couple Almita and Roland Vamos, and her work Rumi Settings (2001) was premiered by siblings Ani and Ida Kavafian. While Maya and I appreciated the classic works by Mozart and Martinů, as players devoted to contemporary music, we felt strongly that the potential of this instrumentation greatly exceeded what was currently available. It seemed as if the similarities between the violin and viola often limited composers’ imaginations. The majority of works fell into one of two camps: either the two instruments passed melodies back and forth, or the viola simply served as an accompaniment to the violin as if they were the left and right hands of a pianist. From our viewpoint, the instruments’ shared characteristics were an advantage! The overlapping range was not a restriction, but rather offered the opportunity to form a new composite instrument with doubled strength, an

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 37, 2021 Online Issue

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