A little while back I wrote about recording some viola music in the impressively resonant acoustic of All Hallows’ Church, Twickenham. At that point, for various reasons, my excursion into the under-occupied territory of swing viola was the only product ready to be opened up to the public.

However, it’s now time to present the real purpose of the session: a complementary pair of art music pieces, essentially an online portfolio for my current point of arrival in that sphere. First up, a complete solo; and while I’m all for clarity of sound in Baroque music, I think that acoustic really lends extra fullness and presence to a sound that, particularly playing an octave above where the music was originally written, could sound a little lonely.

You can watch it too if you like, though fans of my storming round the stage (and audience) rock solos may be disappointed that I’m being a fairly restrained classical player in this instance:

The real showpiece though (both for a handful of really virtuosic passages, and for pushing the intensity of expression that is probably my single greatest strength in ‘classical’ music) is this fairly obscure Romantic character showpiece. Big thanks to Connor Fogel for playing piano (and contributing at least 50% of the flamboyance and sartorial elegance, which is rare for my pianists!), and to Clive Turner for recording, filming and editing.

These are also moving into the demos linked from my Playing page, until something else moves the game on again …

Enjoy and let me know what you think!