GYÖRGY LIGETI (1923-2006): Sonata,  GIACINTO SCELSI (1905-1988): Manto, HEINZ HOLLIGER (b.1939): Trema, FRANCO DONATONI (1927-2000): Ali, HELMUT LACHENMANN (b.1935): Toccatina.

Description: These works offer a nice cross-section of the many different approaches to string instruments practised by composers of the 20th century. The one common thread is the acknowledgement and exploitation of the viola's dusky sonority, described by Ligeti as possessing 'an aftertaste of wood, earth and tannic acid'. Holliger's piece is a densely-textured perpetuum mobile, furiously active. By contrast, Ligeti's sonata begins with a long, solitary line, a melody with microtonal inflections. This is followed by an accelerating movement in chords, then another slow, more tonally based melodic movement, which slowly moves into denser, double- and triple-stopped chords. A sotto voce perpetuum mobile follows, scurrying and very different from Holliger's vehement one; then a harmonically harsh, protesting lament and a brief chaconne which, were it not for its dissonance, conforms to the principles of its baroque model. The first movement of the Donatoni consists of abrupt chords separated by arpeggii and scales; the second, however, consists entirely of extended techniques, seeming to emulate electronic sounds. The Lachenmann goes a good deal farther in this direction, the work consisting largely of tiny sounds produced by touching the strings, and delicate percussion textures. Scelsi celebrates sound differently; through the plastically molded slow-moving interactions of close, often microtonally divided intervals, with the violist also required to add a vocal line in the third movement. Geneviève Strosser (viola).