It is often said that the viola is too large to be held like a violin and too small to be held like a violoncello. So it might be described as a half-and-half way instrument between the two.
VIOLA D’AMORE, WITH “FLAMING-SWORD” SOUND-HOLES
Music for the viola is written in the Alto, or C, Clef (on the third line). The highest notes are, however, written in the Treble, Violin, Soprano, or G, Clef.
Important as the viola is in the Orchestra to-day, it was a long time before the beauty of its voice and its technical possibilities were recognized. It was only used to play subordinate middle parts, filling up time and helping along now and then with the bass. Never, never was it allowed to lift its sad, melancholy, tragic and religious voice. No matter how longingly it might listen to the other instruments singing a melody, or chattering to one another, it was doomed to silence. No composer would let it speak. Nobody ever dreamed that it had anything to say!
But it was there all the time. Patient old viola, just used for the tutti passages, where every voice speaks, or screams, or cries, at once. Sometimes in rare delight it was allowed to play in unison with the violoncellos, and, more rarely, in unison with the violins.
But Mozart—to whom Music owes so much—discovered the possibilities of the viola!
Mozart gave the viola its proper place in the Orchestra, making it something more than a large violin filling up a gap between soprano and bass. He made it important in his Trios and lifted it into prominence by writing a Concerto for violin, viola and Orchestra! The next time you hear Mozart’s magnificent Don Giovanni listen for the viola, when Zerlina is singing her aria, Vedrai carino. The viola has a great deal to say in this tender love song and says it as beautifully and as tenderly as Zerlina herself.
The viola became of great importance in Beethoven’s Trios, Quartets and Quintets; and, to its joy, it was allowed to take a prominent part in the Orchestra! First it was permitted to sing with the violoncellos and bassoons, as in the Egmont Overture, and then actually to play with the violoncellos the exquisite melody in the Andante of Beethoven’s C minor Symphony (the Fifth). The first critics who heard this Symphony noticed to their amazement that the violoncellos gained roundness and purity of tone from their association with the viola!
There are many places in Beethoven’s Symphonies where the violas are conspicuous; and they are always noble as well as beautiful. The violas also play with the violoncellos in the Choral finale of the Ninth Symphony.