Astral Artists and the Chamber Orchestra spotlight the viola

How can you tell when a violist is playing out of tune?

If you see the bow is moving....

How do you transcribe a violin piece for viola?

Divide the metronome marking by 2.

Viola players collect viola jokes the way lawyers collect lawyer jokes.

To most of the people sitting in the audience, on the other hand, the viola is a dark, beautiful instrument that evokes poetic emotions. The viola always creates a striking moment when it emerges from its backseat position and takes the lead in a string quartet.

The accidents of the scheduling process produced two consecutive Sunday afternoons that spotlighted the viola. On November 9, the featured soloist in the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia program was the Chamber Orchestra’s principal violist, Ayane Kozasa. On November 16, Astral Artists presented the Philadelphia recital debut of Born Lau, the violist on its current roster of rising young musicians.

Lau had an advantage. The chamber music repertoire for the viola is larger and more varied than the concerto repertoire. Composers prefer the more penetrating sound of the violin when they write concertos. Kozasa chose one of the standards for her Chamber Orchestra appearance — Carl Stamitz’s 1770 D Major concerto.

Music from the late 18th-century “early classical” period usually sounds too mannered to my ear, and the Stamitz is no exception. It’s a warm piece in spite of that, with flashy passages that let the soloist show what she can do. Kozasa added to its charms by accenting the chamber music qualities of the solo part — the interludes when the viola collaborates with other sections of the orchestra and produces the kind of blend it creates in a chamber group. The viola player is the quiet teammate who adds the touches that make everybody else sound good.

Born Lau played six pieces that spanned three centuries and included a schmaltzy tango and an arrangement of a Prokofiev ballet number, “Dance of the Knights” from Romeo and Juliet. They were all ear-catching, but the most noteworthy were a world premiere by Estonian composer Riho Esko Maimets, a 1919 sonata by Rebecca Clarke, and the Brahms trio for viola, cello, and piano that ended the afternoon.

Forgetfulness

The Maimets is a sonata for viola and piano written for Lau. It’s the fifth in a series of pieces Maimets has dubbed unusta — an Estonian word meaning forgetfulness. The composer wants you to forget your life and enter a more spiritual world as you listen.

Musically, the sonata sets a highly varied viola line against a piano part that sounds like silvery raindrops. Maimets may invite us into another world, but there is nothing ethereal about his vision of its attractions. In the beginning, the viola part sounds like one of those lilting “Scottish airs” Baroque composers liked to include in suites. It becomes more intense and complex as the piece goes on and ends with a grand flourish.

A twice-neglected composer

Rebecca Clarke is an early 20th-century composer who seems to have been overlooked during the revival of neglected women composers that’s taken place during the last two decades. I think I heard something by her a few years ago, but I’m not sure. According to the website maintained by the Rebecca Clarke Society, Clarke managed to earn a living as a musician during most her life, but she ran into all the standard prejudices against women composers, starting with the bigotry of a cruel father. Her viola sonata and her 1923 piano trio were both runners up in competitions held at the chamber music festival in Berkshire, Massachusetts, and they’ve become her best known works.

The viola sonata is a favorite with viola players, and it’s easy to see why. Clarke was a viola player herself, and she understood the appeal of the instrument. Her opening Impetuoso movement starts the piece in grand style and manages to be dramatic without being flamboyant. The middle movement vivace puts the viola through a rollicking workout, with the low pitch of the viola adding new emotions to the kind of zestiness violinists love to exploit. The final adagio movement mines the viola’s capacity for dark serenades and alternates it with flurries of speed and action.

Poignancy and depth

The standard piano trio combines a piano with a violin and a cello, but composers have always felt free to make substitutions. Brahms originally wrote his trio with a clarinet substituting for the violin. He supplemented the clarinet version with a viola arrangement and blessed violists with a piece that proves they can replace the violin any time a composer wises up and gives them the opportunity.

Brahms’s best works, in my opinion, are the chamber pieces that combine a piano with other instruments. Put one of those pieces in the hands of three musicians like Lau, cellist Michael Katz, and pianist Amy Yang, and you can be certain your concert will end with all the poignancy and depth that concluded this one.