The deep, resonant sound of the viola — suspended between the brightness of the violin and the darkness of the cello — has always exercised a peculiar fascination on composers, particularly in our own time. Violists have the rare fortune of having in their repertoire pages written by two profoundly influential composers of the last century.
Paul Hindemith, himself a viola virtuoso, wrote the first in a series of works for his beloved instrument shortly after the Great War. Dmitri Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata was his final composition, written only weeks before his death in 1975. Worn down by ill health and physical exhaustion, he found solace in music that seems to hover in the void. Especially in its final movement, he looks back over his entire life, with fleeting thematic allusions to earlier works and a direct reference to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata — the very work that, not coincidentally, opens this concert.
Elias Sdoukos and Manos Kitsikopoulos, two of today’s most vibrant and sought-after Greek soloists, invite us on a truly “inner” journey.
