Has anyone played this? The Peters Edition is on the viola grade 4 syllabus.

I don't have a teacher so would appreciate help from anyone who's played it

There are a couple of bits where I'm not sure what position they are expecting you to play in!!

Bar 9 - that D, are they expecting you to go back down to 1st position or up to 5th?

I have so far assumed 5th then stayed there for the start of bar 10... where I can't decide between 3-1-3-1-2-3 or 3-1-1-1-2-3.

Bar 16 - why do you go up to 3rd there? How long to they expect you to stay there?? Bar 17 is a bit piggy if you're in 3rd, well it is if you have little fingers as out of practice as I do! So presume that it's like bar 14 and you switch straight back into 1st... I wonder if that is supposed to have a little portamento??

And any tips for making the bottom line sound really nice, most particularly the sul C bar, the sul G isn't so hard.

Any help appreciated

Sorry - I haven't played this so can't really be much help, but I doubt that you would be expected to go up to fifth position for grade 4. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me can clarify this.

I thought it was a bit odd, to be honest. But there's a bit at the end with "IV" above the stave which I *thought* (I'm incredibly out of the loop though...) would mean it was played on the C string and that would have to be in 5th position to be on C... *confused as usual...*

On the cello original, bar 9 is a big shift up on the A-string from A# to D, so I would definitely keep that character of upward movement in the viola arrangement.

For bar 24, on the cello, the first B is played on II in extended 3rd position, with a shift to I for the C which is played in 1st position (by me at least). I see absolutely no reason you should struggle with a ridiculously high position on the viola C-string. Those string indications are purely editorial and not original in any way. I seen no reason why you should necessarily follow them, provided you keep a coherent melodic line and don't have blatant open strings etc. If you follow bad editorial suggestions and make a coarse sound, surely that won't be preferred to a better-sounding alternative?

Every stringed instrument is different and so differing choices must necessarily be made.

Thanks Storini, really interesting to have a cellist's POV! Agree about bar 9 by the way - I presumed it must mean 5th pos. as couldn't imagine why you'd go down to first there, but wanted to check

Puff Cat also gave me some excellent viola-specific advice via PM

The sul C is actually manageable having got some advice how to get an OK tone, but I'll think about that one - from bar 24 onwards it's actually fine, as 5th position is easier there than on C anyway and you only move up into it for the last note.

I wonder if the intention is to try and create a more cellistic sound by playing on the lowest string? Hmm. When I feel a bit more confident will make some recordings and compare the different possibilities.


True, I know my teachers at school had no qualms about tailoring stuff to someone's strengths if necessary, in fact one of my shared lessons ended up quite interesting when our teacher taught us exam pieces seperately and changed all the fingerings in my lesson-mate's part, so when we had lessons together again we were playing the same piece totally differently