Timothy Ridout viola ; Hélène Clément viola ; Ting-Ru Lai viola ; Matthew Lipman viola ; Eivind Ringstad viola ; Georgy Kovalev viola ; James Baillieu piano

The first half of the last century saw a remarkable flowering of new music for viola, inspired in part by the influence of the great violist Lionel Tertis, in part by composer-performers such as Cecil Forsyth and Paul Hindemith. The Passacaglia from the latter’s expressionist Sonata for solo viola Op. 11 No. 5 provides a powerful contrast to the gentle lyricism and sparky energy of York Bowen’s two Duos and radiant beauty of his Romance in A. Timothy Ridout includes the rhapsodic eloquence of Forsyth’s Chanson Celtique and a brace of miniatures by Frank Bridge, first published in 1908 in a Viola Library volume edited by Tertis, then professor of viola at the Royal Academy of Music in London and already a star soloist.

Paul Hindemith – IV. In Form und Zeitmass einer Passacaglia: das Thema sehr gehalten