{"id":1129,"date":"2008-09-15T21:46:14","date_gmt":"2008-09-16T04:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=1129"},"modified":"2013-02-07T19:02:51","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T03:02:51","slug":"viola-viola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/15\/viola-viola\/","title":{"rendered":"viola, viola"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tonight I just finished a rehearsal with my longtime friend and stand partner, OSO principal violist Jo\u00ebl Belgique, of George Benjamin<\/a>‘s 1997 work for two violas, Viola, viola<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It’s our second time through, and I’m reminded of an aphorism often cited by our pianist friend Cary Lewis, namely that no one should have to play a difficult piece the first time.<\/p>\n

Our first time with this piece was in 2002, for the International Viola Congress in Seattle.\u00c2\u00a0 It seems to be going together a lot easier, but it’s a tricky piece, and there’s a lot to do for both parts, and even though we read off of a score which has both parts, it’s often hard to spare a moment to tear one’s eyes away from one’s own part to look at what the other guy is doing!<\/p>\n

Here’s an example of one of the busiest spots (click music to enlarge):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s quite a spectacular, if difficult, piece.\u00c2\u00a0 Benjamin succeeds to a remarkable degree in creating a piece for two instruments that often sounds as if several more were actually playing.\u00c2\u00a0 It takes advantage of the timbre of the viola’s alto voice to great effect, and really is a tour de force<\/em> of string orchestration.<\/p>\n

We’ll be playing this piece, which lasts about 8 minutes or so, on this coming weekend’s tribute to Messiaen’s 100th birthday, presented by Marzen.\u00c2\u00a0 See the flyer below.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tonight I just finished a rehearsal with my longtime friend and stand partner, OSO principal violist Jo\u00ebl Belgique, of George Benjamin‘s 1997 work for two violas, Viola, viola. It’s our second time through, and I’m reminded of an aphorism often cited by our pianist friend Cary Lewis, namely that no one should have to play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[183,115,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary","category-music","category-viola"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-id","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":998,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/31\/shostakovichs-viola-sonata-redux\/","url_meta":{"origin":1129,"position":0},"title":"shostakovich’s viola sonata, redux","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Zach Carstensen (who writes for the excellent NW music blog collective The Gathering Note) posted the following comment to my first post on Shostakovich's Viola Sonata: I suppose it is well known that Shostakovich\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s failing health made the sonata one of the composers sparsest works of music. Yet, I have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2683,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/12\/doldrums\/","url_meta":{"origin":1129,"position":1},"title":"doldrums","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's that time of the year.\u00c2\u00a0 The orchestra's season is over (and so are the paychecks).\u00c2\u00a0 I teach at the Max Aronoff Viola Institute, a string camp that takes place at the end of June each year in Kenmore, a suburb of Seattle\/Bellevue.\u00c2\u00a0 I always seem to choose repertoire that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14980,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2018\/11\/05\/viola-monday-11-5-18\/","url_meta":{"origin":1129,"position":2},"title":"viola monday 11\/5\/18","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I've decided to start a regular column on Mondays that deals just with the viola. The viola is, of course, my chosen instrument (although I think that's not quite correct\u2013I think it chose me), and there are a lot of cool and not so well-known things about it that you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "viola"","block_context":{"text":"viola","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/instruments\/viola\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21209,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2021\/04\/01\/viola-for-holy-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":1129,"position":3},"title":"viola for holy week","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 1, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Last spring, the Oregon Symphony presented a series of video productions that were a brainchild of the OSO's Creative Chair Gabriel Kahane and director Holcombe Waller. My contribution was Nico Muhly's Keep in Touch, for viola and electronics. It's apt that that video is being re-run this week - Holy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "new music"","block_context":{"text":"new music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/new-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/etJ6vVUBA0Y\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4814,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/16\/horrors-of-maiden-performances\/","url_meta":{"origin":1129,"position":4},"title":"horrors of maiden performances","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a well established fact that the first performance of any piece, no matter how simple or complex, is one of the most terrifying things that a performer can do.\u00a0 I'm not necessarily talking about a premiere, just the first time that one adds a piece to one's performing repertoire.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/21_11_79_prev-266x400.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14102,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2016\/05\/24\/viola-jokes-ftw\/","url_meta":{"origin":1129,"position":5},"title":"viola jokes, ftw","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 24, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a big fan of viola jokes. I don't find them in the least bit offensive. Why? They're mostly made up by violists, for one. They're also based in a rather checkered early history of the instrument and its proponents. They have a basic sense of truth to them, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_6812","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6812.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6812.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6812.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6812.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6812.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/IMG_6812.jpg?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}