Inside the Inside Music for Viola and Friends
Paul Gr iff iths
Until early in the 20th century, the viola was almost exclusively an instrument of the inside, voicing inner parts, whether in chamber groups or orchestral scores, rarely exposing itself. Then, encouraged by some composers and determined players (Paul Hindemith was both), it began to come forward much more, to allow us to fathom what is inside the inside. Two Violas (with Others) The long-delayed completion of a big orchestral piece, Sudden Time, brought George Benjamin in 1993 onto a plane of mature creativity where he could re-engage with big forms and big forces. Fellow composer Tōru Takemitsu, however, must have recognized Benjamin would have something to say also with relatively frugal resources, and invited him to write a viola duo for the opening of Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, in 1997. This prospect of two customarily soft-spoken instruments occupying a vast space gave Benjamin his creative spur. The violas would not be retiring at all; they would scald, scour, and cheerfully bubble. In doing so they would also give the impression, as in Bach’s solo string music, of several instruments struggling to get out of one. Hence Viola, Viola, an orchestral piece for two violas. Starting with a sound to be heard often in a concert hall—tuning A—Viola, Viola is a tour of textures and sonorities, created by two instruments doing the same thing at different times, and therefore
13
