Word: violist
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Fortunately, Joseph de Pasquale, the principal violist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who was guest soloist in the Berlioz, produced a performance which was absorbing enough to take attention away from some of the orchestra's defects, and at the same time add an element of warmth which was absent from the orchestral accompaniment...
...Sonata for Viola Solo, Opus 25, No.1, was the first of four pieces from the early 1920's, thus coming from the time before Hindemith was 30 years old. Hindemith, a concert violist himself, was familiar with the sonic abilities of that instrument. The piece was a study in dissonance, brought about by playing on two strings at once. The multiple-stopping was at times very difficult, but Eleftherios Eleftherakis played brilliantly for the most part. The piece and its performance were marked by a great richness of tone and lucidity...
...steady flow of works, none of them poor, most (including a 1948 Pulitzer-prizewinning Third Symphony) concise, witty, technically brilliant. Last week the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed the latest Piston, Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, to warm applause. As played by the Boston's first-rate Violist Joseph de Pasquale, the concerto unfolded as a simple, strongly exuberant piece with clear orchestral coloration and precise balance. In its climactic third movement, there was plenty of agitation, some gay syncopation, and an enticing dialogue between the solo viola and the orchestra. All in all, another reason to be grateful that...
Haydn, the first great master of the quartet medium, was represented by his Quartet in G Major, Opus 77, No. 1. Although composed in his last years, it is a fresh and daring work. The four musicians--violinists Marc Gottlieb and Vladimir Weisman, violist William Schoen, and 'cellist Irving Klein--performed it with a fine sense of ensemble and suitable restraint; in fact, the 'cellist tended to be too restrained. The first two movements went particularly well...
String quartet players probably have more fun than any other musicians, for each of them-two fiddlers, a violist and a cellist-is in sole charge of a part that would be played by a whole section in an orchestra. But string-quartet music, limited to small halls, has a reputation as "difficult" listening. It has none of the sensational blare and boom of a symphony, its finely-spun lines are pared to essentials, requiring the listener's intense concentration; also, it lacks a conductor, whose dramatics an audience can follow. Today, the way for a quartet to establish...