A Stranger in Paradise

We can count them on one hand: Bartok, Telemann, Hindemith. I'll wager Mozart, in duets and quintets, evinced some interest. But most top-notch composers never took a shine to the viola. Nested between the commanding cello section and the outcast second violins, violas slog through the machinations of the tormented, repeating their sixteen notes ad infinitum. If the melody ever passes their way, it's probably because the other strings grew bored with it. How can this hefty cousin to the violin unify its dark contralto C string and nasal A?

It's easy to engage in cocktail banter that descends toward viola jokes. Even violists chuckle, knowing that they become more reputable the more they put themselves down.

How brave of Hector Berlioz, then, to construct a symphonic travelogue, Harold in Italy, around the enigmatic viola. It acts as a lonesome spectator upon whom the surrounding orchestra refracts its jubilant, occasionally sainted grandeur. Standing in for "Harold," the soloist must feel apprehension. His playing steers away from sensuality, for other colors in the ensemble will carry that, but gaiety also eludes this vagabond. In the second movement, he appears as a wanderer lost among the peasants and the chimes of an abbey. Famished for notes to play, he feeds off their reverence and quietly, with little virtuosity, he is consigned to the countermelody. In a strange land, his task stays familiar.

Harold tours the countryside, the vineyards, the mountains, and just when the spark strikes him, he repeats his theme in the fourth movement, asserting his vitality before the villagers. There is something so earthy about his voice; his tones are not dulcet but burnished. Before he can enter the realm of the spiritual, however, his passport is revoked. The spectacles and sounds of Italy engulf and overpower their visitor, though not out of xenophobia. Italy's wonders reflect off the spectator, but he is merely the narrator who provides passage to these insights. In this symphony (and it is not a concerto), the viola must physically leave the stage in the fourth movement. His place, Berlioz asserts, is to acquiesce; he does not shine individually but as part of a collective endeavor.

But oh, for that rich lower register, the violins think, shocked out of their melody-centered world. For just half an hour, they also see a new world, built upon the inner voice and its capacity to see, from a distance, true visions.