Viola Concerto, HPS 1804

Composed to commission by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Australia and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2005, this work was first performed that year at Barbican Hall, London, with the composer as soloist. Brett Dean comments that “it was a unique privilege and challenge to have the opportunity to approach the form of the viola concerto as both composer and performer. Above all, it filled me with thoughts about my own relationship with this curiously beautiful, somewhat enigmatic instrument of my choosing. Due to the unusually hands-on directness of writing a concerto for oneself, it also inspired thoughts upon the workings of music itself, removed from any sense of external programmatic influences or stories which inform so many of my other pieces.” The opening Fragment serves as a brief introductory satellite of serenity before the orchestra tumbles into the longer second movement, Pursuit. As its name implies, this is a restless ride for all concerned, presenting the solo viola as a harried, lonely figure fighting against the latent threat of the orchestra. The piece closes with Veiled and Mysterious, an extended elegy in which the viola sings an unfolding Klagelied over icy sonorities of solo celli and bowed percussion, and then develops in intensity, to emerge in a large scale tutti section eventally leading to a peaceful, if ambivalent conclusion.