The Dramatic Viola

Hindemith, Sonata Op.11 No.4

Hindemith, Sonata Op.11 No.5

Sutherland,Sonata - viola and piano

Clarke, Sonata - viola and piano

Clarke, Morpheus

Australia Piano Quartet presents a program featuring the viola at its most dramatic. Due to the absence of cellist and co-director Thomas Rann, currently touring Europe with world renowned orchestra MusicAerterna, James Wannan will deliver a viola-centric progam alongside guest Sydney-based pianist, Grace Kim.

The viola’s reputation, at the end of the nineteenth century, was as a polite, soft instrument, suitable for chamber music and played by violinists that lacked the charisma and competence to play the violin. Paul Hindemith and Rebecca Clarke sought to reinvent the viola as the ultimate instrument of expression and drama. Following WWI, Hindemith decide to focus his concertising on the viola. In these 2 Op.11 Sonatas (written primarily for himself to perform) we see him responding to the past and embarking on a new, highly original style that reflected the post-war world.

Margaret Sutherland’s Sonata responds to another war. Written in 1949, its melancholic lyricism draws on European idioms of the early 20th century, but remaking them into a voice that is uniquely hers and distinctively Australian.

Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata is a virtuoso masterpiece. Synthesising elements of American, English and French musical languages into a sumptuous individual style.