Brilliant. Coming home from seeing Ballboy last night (of which more later!) we had Radio 3 on in the car -- yes, we are the sort of people who go see pop music and come home to random classical, world, jazz and conversation radio.
We caught a wonderful piece by Ruth Padel talking about her experience of the viola. And I couldn't help but think of lovely EineKleineRob.
Hope he caught it.
No I didn't, but on your recommendation I dug out the headphones and fired up iPlayer to hear it now, even though I was falling asleep and about to log off. What a lovely piece. Most of what she said I already knew, but how delightfully she expressed it. I always think of myself as a Second Violin, which is very much What I Do in orchestras, though in fact I lead our string quartet. (That's mainly because I organised it, but I really should swap seats with Emma some time: it would do us both good.) If violas are intermediate beteeen violins and cellos, second violins are intermediate between firsts and violas.
ReplyDeleteI never knew Jimi Hendrix started out on viola! John Cale of course kept with it.
And viola players can give as good as they get in the joke department. Q: "Whay are violins smaller than violas?" A: "They're not. It's an optical illusion: the violinists's heads are bigger."
And now I am reminded that I have to find a soloist to play Harold In Italy with my orchestra next May....
Thank you for drawing my attention to the programme.