Stravinsky: Élégie for solo viola

Stravinsky wrote the Élégie in 1944 at the request of Germain Prévost, violist of the Pro Arte Quartet, in memory of the quartet's founder and first violinist, Alphonse Onnou. It was first performed in 1945 and remains Stravinsky's only piece for the viola. Played with a mute throughout, it opens with a slow, chant-like melody, continues with a fugue of two interwoven voices, and returns to the opening, its phrases separated by pauses like breaths.

It is a lament for a lost friend, but also a philosophical look at life and death. Death is accepted as a fact, and the piece becomes a reflection on the meaning of life and the transience of everything: all things have a beginning and an end. The Élégie finishes as it began, perhaps with a small protest, perhaps with catharsis, depending on the listener.

Composers have often turned to the viola for their farewells. In 1945, the year of the Élégie's first performance, Béla Bartók died, leaving his Viola Concerto unfinished. Brahms's last chamber works, the Op. 120 sonatas, exist in a version for viola, and Shostakovich's final work, completed weeks before his death in 1975, was his Viola Sonata.

Roman Spitzer dedicates this performance to all who have departed, and especially to those who left too soon, though, as they say, every death is too soon.

Roman Spitzer, viola

Roman Spitzer is a violist, violinist, conductor and teacher. Born in St Petersburg, he studied violin at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory. After moving to Israel in 1990 he studied viola with Gad Levertoff at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music and became principal viola of the Tel Aviv Symphony Orchestra. In 2000 he won the position of principal viola of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta, and since 2016 he has been principal viola of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

He has been guest principal of orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and has worked with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti and Daniel Barenboim. As a soloist he has appeared at the Vienna Musikverein, Beijing's Great Hall of the People and the Seoul Arts Center. As a chamber musician he has performed with Natalia Gutman, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Leonidas Kavakos, Steven Isserlis and Maxim Vengerov, among others.

Roman Spitzer is professor of viola at Codarts, Rotterdam. www.romanspitzer.com