Customer Reviews

Viola Solo

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

**************************************************************************************************************

This première recording of solo viola from Melia Watras is a must for lovers of the warm-voiced stringed instrument. It features classical composers from those born in the latter part of the 17th century (J.S. Bach) to most recent contemporary ones (Stravinsky, Penderecki, Corigliano, Arad); it even includes the première recording of John Corigliano's moody Fancy on a Bach Air in a new adaptation for viola by the soloist, as well as two world première recordings of new works by young and promising composers of note: Andrew Waggoner and Paola Prestini.

What makes this CD outstanding are not just the amazing skills of the artist, but the rich palette of styles and techniques she displays without calling attention to herself--her total devotion to the music. "De la musique avant toute chose," to borrow Paul Verlaine's quote about what poetry should be. And "poetry of the viola" is what this album resounds with. The excellent recording is of such quality that the performance's cantilatory qualities reach you as if the artist were giving you a private chamber recital---so close, that you may perceive her breathing's relation to the flow of the music!

This concert will take you from a deeply rich and beautiful "Melancholia" in the first movement of the Arad piece, reminiscent of Béla Bartók's Sixth String Quartet finale, and through a deep elegiac surrender whose harmonic bouquet evokes a sublime choral ensemble in Stravinsky's Élégie, to the cerebral mountaintop of Waggoner's starlit Collines parmi étoiles, the serendipitous whimsical delights of Prestini's Sympathique, and the final lullaby that chases away the fears of the night of the Penderecki Cadenza per viola sola.

However, the musicianship of Melia Watras can also deliver dazzling dual harmonics in the "Alla Bulgarese" movement of the forementioned Atar Arad Sonata for Viola Solo, by this I mean the natural harmonics of the solid note coupled with artificial harmonics above, while in another section the left hand is playing pizzicato on top of an open, bowed string. Movements two and three of this piece reminded this reviewer very much of one of Béla Bartók's six folkloric Roumanian tunes, usually played in parallel fifths in octaves on the piano with the solo on violin supraharmonics. But the third movement, sul ponticello, reminded me mostly of the finale of the Concerto for Orchestra with its maddening and relentlessly continuous finale. It also had elements of the pizzicato movement in Bartók's Fourth String Quartet. The J.S. Bach Chromatic Fantasy was a frenzy of brilliant chromatics virtuosically delivered with gusto and panache! The Corigliano Fancy on a Bach Air, brought back memories of Miriam Makeba's eight-octave vocal range---here the viola's tonal expanse appears to shatter any preconceived notion of its instrumental limits.

To conclude, one must repeat that Melia Watras plays music in the delicate passages that leaves the impression on the listener that this music just happens as easily as one takes a breath. And in the difficult passages, with the playful ease of an accomplished artist for whom nothing appears to be a sufficient challenge. . . and without drawing attention to herself! All is done to make everyone, the musician included, transcend the ordinary reality and go a-traveling into the virtual, tonal worlds that flow in the language of the human heart. At times one has the impression that one is hearing an orchestra, a choral ensemble, a string quartet, so richly evocative is the playing. This bravura performance is highly recommended both for the amateur and the experienced listener. Surely everyone can find something lovely, poignant, sublime in it that moves the soul.

Melia Watras is a real emerging master of her instrument, probably the best viola soloist to emerge in some time, with a focus on new music. This CD is a collection of unaccompanied pieces (with a slant toward the twentieth century) and her tone, technicality and musicianship stand up well under the microscope here. She's also managed to dig through the viola literature and find some truly beautiful, strange and interesting pieces -- none of the usual old warhorses, just great pieces spanning the gamut of Bach to Kodaly to Stravinsky to Corigliano -- hidden gems that deserve the attention they get here and make the viola repertoire seem as vital as that for any other solo instrument. Definitely recommended.