The Concerto No. 2

Originally published as part of The Concerto, a monthly letter in three movements from Tuning in Fifths on Substack. 

Yesterday evening I was drawn to open the case of my baroque viola, an instrument that I’ve sadly had little reason to play in the past year. I had been listening to Yo Yo Ma playing Bach Cello Suites as I worked earlier in the day, marveling at the beauty of the music and the instrument, so naturally, I pulled out a viola transcription of the cello suites before tuning my instrument.

Tuning takes a bit more time and care on Baroque instruments with strings made of natural gut that responds readily to humidity. It had been some time since I had last played the instrument, so I checked for open seams as I brought the strings up to pitch. I tune my Baroque instruments to A415 which takes a bit of adjustment each time I switch from my modern instrument, but I find that the lower pitch suits the music.

One of the reasons why I enjoy playing the viola is to experience a different musical character. While the violin feels extroverted, the viola feels like the instrument that holds up the structure of the orchestra, a sort of calm, harmonic glue. The first time I played viola in (a baroque) orchestra, I was awed by the feeling of sitting in the center of the orchestra literally and harmonically. I felt the music pass through the viola section between the violins and the cellos with the violas supporting each section in turn.

After I tune my instrument, I flip through the pages of Bach’s Cello Suites on my iPad looking for an approachable movement. My goal is to simply play some music rather than engage in the more technical work of practice. I select the Sarabande from Suite 5. It is at once moody and simple and playing it feels like a way to warm up to the viola, the different pitch, and the feeling of playing a Baroque instrument.

The first thing that struck me about playing a viola strung with gut strings was the rasp in the sound. I’ve been told that this distinct sound doesn’t always carry to the audience, and as a unique characteristic of the Baroque viola, this should be worked with, sometimes using a denser, scrubbier bow stroke to pull out the sound.

The current bow I use with my Baroque viola is a basic Chinese-made bow with black hair which accentuates the gravely tone of the gut strings. When I play, I try to bring out this raw quality of the instrument while paying attention to the resonance, luxuriating in open-string notes as I work through the Sarabande.

Time slips by as I play, unlike the time that I spend working on a technically demanding work for violin. Playing the viola is just for fun, although ostensibly my violin-playing is also a hobby. On the viola, I am accountable to no one in my playing. I rarely bring my viola to a lesson unless I have signed up for a chamber music workshop on viola or I need some extra help on an orchestra piece. So recently, toward the end of each practice session, I’ve been taking out my viola, opening my iPad to a movement of a Cello Suite that I have not yet played, and exploring the raw sound of playing Bach on gut strings.