1st movement of Hoffmeister Viola Concerto

The Hoffmeister D-major Viola concerto for Solo Viola and Orchestra is one of the stock staple pieces in every Violist's repertoire list as it is one of very few (the Stamitz Concerto being the other...) examples of Viola Solo Concerti from the Classical era of Classical Music. So, it is often requested as an audition piece for modern orchestras and has gained a notoriety for being just a crap concerto... or more favourably, just not as good as the Mozart concerti for Violin or the Haydn concerti for Cello!

I have always enjoyed playing the Hoffmeister (less so, the Stamitz) concerto and have performed it in concert before... it isn't "great" art music, but it is still a bit of good fun to play... after all, you can't exist on champagne and caviar for your whole life... sometimes, you just want a bit of beer and pretzels!

Although the piece isn't excessively difficult in comparison to the Classical concerti for other instruments (except for a few passaages...), the main challenge of the piece is to make it interesting to listen to... and that requires more than the stand up, play in time and in tune approach. It does require that you understand the musical grammar of the time, so a bit of training in musical/spoken rhetoric is quite handy... luckily, that is the focus of the Early Music specialisation! Music is not just pretty tunes and interesting harmony... it does have a structure and grammar that is different throughout the ages and nationalities, and to interpret from a modern perspective that focuses on tone quality and melody means that you are at odds with the original intent of the composition.. not that it can't be successful, but it is a different approach!

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This version of the first movement of the Hoffmeister concerto was performed by myself and my wife. Above, you can see our instruments that we used... I performed on a Baroque Viola that is a copy made in Australia, using also a mid 19th century Viola bow from Germany. My wife is playing on a Dutch copy of a Viennese fortepiano (a precursor to the modern Classical piano). We put this together in a morning, it is nice to have the opportunity to play together again... in our usual professional lives, we don't play much together as I moved further into the Early Music specialisation whilst she retained more contact with the modern Classical Music world. It is something that I miss, she is really quite easy to play with... much of what we do doesn't need to be explicitly spoken out and agreed upon, it is like dancing with a dance partner who knows what is needed exactly when it is needed! A nice change from some of my colleages...

The piece is recorded at A=430Hz with a relatively equal temperament (Valotti, I think although the temperament wasn't really holding too well!), not for any spiritual holistic reasoning... it is the Early Music "standard" pitch for Germanic music of the Classical era (Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven).

Obviously, this is a fortepiano reduction of the orchestral part... we can't fit an orchestra in the living room! Plus, musicians can be a bit mercenary and demand payment.... well, it is our job after all!

Hopefully we can do the rest of the concerto in the next couple of weeks... it would be nice to have a recording of it with my wife at the fortepiano! The slow movement should be a breeze... but the last movement is a real workout for the viola player... I will definitely need to have a look at it and put some hours into practicing it!

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