Viola Concerto

Abstract

The last of Rózsa's five concertos, this, for viola, was written in 1979, toward the end of the composer's career; he lived until 1995, but ill health prevented him from writing much more than short chamber and solo pieces after his retirement from movie scoring in 1981. The concerto is, in fact, Rózsa's last concert composition for full orchestra. The work was tardily premiered in 1984 by Pinchas Zukerman, Andre Previn and the Pittsburgh Symphony. The viola's colors are particularly suited to Rózsa's dark Hungarian style, which is inspired by folk song and given an edgy thrust.

Unusually for Rózsa, this concerto is cast in four movements rather than the traditional three. It opens with a Moderato assai movement, the soloist winding through a nocturnal soundscape. Much of the melodic material, for both soloist and orchestra, carries a nostalgic yearning, and sometimes a very private sort of striving. The cadenza, full of double stops, seems about to give in to desperation, when the orchestra relieves it with gentle lines in the woodwinds. The movement meanders to its conclusion, revisiting the principal themes (this is, after all, the recapitulation in a sonata-allegro format), and drifting away in music of solitude and, again, nostalgia.

The mood is abruptly broken by the Allegro giocoso movement, a witty, hyperactive scherzo (at least for the soloist) that manages to work a few folk inflections into the ever-so-slightly broader material in the B section. Next, the heartfelt Adagio returns the viola to its darker, more lyrical mode with sinuous material that almost could be borrowed from a Hungarian folk song. The music rises and falls gradually, avoiding extreme dynamic contrasts; in the final bars, the viola ascends to a high tessitura and fades away.

The finale, Allegro con spirito, bursts in like a beefier version of the second movement. A rondo, it quickly subsides into gentler material, again recalling a lonely folk song; the substance alternates in this manner, up to a carefully paced and surprisingly unflashy conclusion.

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