Discovering Viola Repertoire at O1C

Violist Aaron Rosengaus and pianist Jennifer Lee (from the Web page for last night’s concert)

Last night’s live-streamed recitalist in the Old First Concerts (O1C) series was violist Aaron Rosengaus. He was accompanied at the piano by Jennifer Lee. The title of his program was The English Viola. More specifically, he presented five compositions, all by British composers and all composed during the first half of the twentieth century. The program was structured in such a way that all five pieces were played in chronological order. Rosengaus also cited which of the compositions had been written for Lionel Tertis, generally acknowledged as one of the first violists to make a career as a recitalist. By way of disclaimer, I should note that all five of these compositions were “first encounter” experiences for me. The video stream has now been archived and may be viewed through a YouTube Web page.

The program included two thee-movement sonatas by Arnold Bax (1922) and Julius Harrison (1945), respectively. My knowledge of Bax was limited almost entirely to his orchestral tone poems known for their rich instrumentation. It is thus worth noting that the sonata he wrote for Tertis was just as abundant in expressive rhetoric, even in the absence of any narrative framework. As a result, there were at least hints of the dramatic in the ways in which the sonata unfolded the rich diversity of viola sonorities, even in the absence of any narrative framework. The same could be said of the Harrison sonata and the expressiveness of Rosengaus’ interpretation, but the overall architecture was not as tightly-knit as it was in the Bax sonata.

Each sonata was preceded by a shorter composition by Rebecca Clarke. Back when she taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, violist Jodi Levitz would sometimes use her Faculty Artist Series recitals to introduce listeners to Clarke. Nevertheless, both of Rosengaus’ selections were new to me, “Morpheus” (1917) preceding Bax and “Passacaglia on an Old English Tune” (1941) preceding Harrison. Both of these were written during the two respective World Wars, and the second was written at a time when Clarke’s plans to return to English were thwarted. The “tune” of the latter was Thomas Tallis’ “Come Creator,” which lent itself perfectly to the passacaglia rhetoric. “Morpheus,” on the other hand, was a tone poem in miniature that marked the richness of Clarke’s capacity for expressiveness.

The program began with two short pieces, composed in 1908 by Frank Bridge on a commission by Tertis. Bridge tends to be better known as Benjamin Britten’s teacher, rather than for his own achievements. (Bridge was also a major influence on Clarke.) It was impressive how much expressiveness he could pack into his brevity. Rosengaus definitely knew how to seize audience attention by beginning with these pieces, which set the mood for the diversity of expressive compositions that would follow.