Instrument
Viola
The violin's slightly larger, lower-voiced sibling.
The viola looks almost identical to the violin, just noticeably larger, and is tuned a fifth lower - giving it a warmer, darker, more alto-range voice than its higher-pitched relative.
How it differs from the violin
The viola's four strings are tuned C, G, D, and A - an octave above the cello. Unlike the violin, it has no single standard size: violas range from about 15 to 17 inches in body length or more, and players choose one that suits their reach. The larger body gives a deeper, huskier, slightly veiled tone, especially rich on its lowest string.
It's read using its own dedicated clef (the alto clef), which trips up many musicians trained first on other instruments, since middle C sits in the middle of the staff rather than below it.
The inner voice
For much of classical music's history, the viola played a supporting, inner-voice role - filling out harmony between the violins above and the cello below, rather than carrying the melody. That's part of why viola jokes are a long-running tradition among orchestral musicians. In the string quartet, the viola sits between the two violins and the cello, often described as the ensemble's harmonic glue.
Plenty of composers loved it, though. Mozart liked to play viola in string quartets, reputedly including sessions with Haydn on violin, and Dvořák spent years as an orchestral violist before his composing career took off.
A growing solo voice
Composers increasingly gave the instrument more prominent material from the Romantic era onward, and it now has a real, if smaller, solo and concerto repertoire of its own. In the early 20th century, virtuosos such as Lionel Tertis and William Primrose campaigned to win the viola recognition as a solo instrument, and inspired composers to write for it. The composer Paul Hindemith was himself a fine violist and wrote extensively for the instrument.
Essential viola music
- Mozart - Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola (1779) - the two instruments as equal partners.
- Berlioz - Harold in Italy (1834) - a symphony with a solo viola, sparked by a request from Paganini.
- Rebecca Clarke - Viola Sonata (1919) - a passionate, richly colored work by an English composer who was a violist herself.
- William Walton - Viola Concerto (1929).
- Béla Bartók - Viola Concerto, left unfinished at his death in 1945 and completed from his sketches.
- Brahms - the two Sonatas, Op. 120, originally for clarinet, which he also arranged for viola.
Where to start listening: Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante puts the viola side by side with the violin, so you can hear exactly how its darker voice differs. Then try the slow movement of the Walton Viola Concerto for the instrument at its most eloquent - and listen in any string quartet for the inner line the viola is quietly weaving underneath the melody.