Fantasie for Four Violas
Grave - Allegro con spirito – Piu lento
The British repertoire for viola ensemble owes its existence largely to one man – Lionel Tertis (1876-1975). He devoted a playing career of 72 years to promoting and popularising the viola as a solo and ensemble instrument, and his famously rich, expressive tone inspired composer after composer to write him original works for an instrument which, before he began his career, was the "Cinderella" of the strings. York Bowen’s Fantasie was one of the earliest of these. Better known as a pianist, Bowen was also an accomplished viola player, and completed this quartet in 1907 as a tribute to Tertis and his advanced students. It was premiered in January 1910 by a quartet led by Tertis, and including Eric Coates, who, before his career as composer of such works as "The Dam Busters" and "By the Sleepy Lagoon", was the principal viola of the Queens Hall Orchestra. The Fantasie, whose three contrasting movements play without a break, is written in a characteristically romantic style. Thomas Tatton writes that it "captures the ideal and varied qualities of the viola; set in a rich and colourful Late Romantic tonal framework it uses melodic material and passage work idiomatic to the instrument...with singing melodies in the upper register for the first viola". The celebrated critic William Mann, writing in 1972 after a concert to mark Tertis’ 94th birthday, wrote that the Fantasie was "finely imagined…often twilit and nostalgic; worth hearing several times".
R.G. Bratby, 1998
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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