Carl Stamitz, one of the great musicians to emerge from the Mannheim school, is

well known for a wide variety of compositions from concerti to chamber works.
Carl Stamitz is not a very familiar name to most music lovers but it has a speci
al role in relation to the viola.He was a composer famous in his time as a violi
n and,
especially, viola and viola d amore virtuoso.
The music historian J.N. Forkel, who among other things wrote the first biograph
y of Johann Sebastian Bach , in an article in 1782 gives a description of the vi
ola
which concludes with these words:
But would anyone who has heard Stamitz play the viola with a taste for majesty an
d tenderness, which appears to be peculiar only to him, not then declare himself
for the viola, would he not then accept it among his favourite instruments
Although Stamitz worked a lot as a viola virtuoso and published a great number o
f compositions during his life, few have survived and are performed now.

Carl Stamitz viola Concerto in D major is one of the best known works among viol
a students and viola players.
This viola concerto is very often associated to exams, auditions...
The concerto was first published in Frankfurt and Paris probably in 1774, where
Stamitz had been living since 1770.
It was composed, no doubt, for his own use as a piece to show his virtuosity, th
rough the abundant use of chords, pedal notes, harmonics and even a left-hand pi
zzicato.

The orchestra
The orchestra is composed of strings, with violas divided playing two separate p
arts, two clarinets (not commonly used in orchestra at that time but already com
mon
in Mannheim) and two horns. Thanks to this writing, the concerto has a rather w
armer sonority, maybe with the intent of matching the soloist s timbre.
Sometimes in the second movement the soloist is accompanied only by the two viol
as.
Stamitz makes an effective use of the different tonal colours of the viola, to s
uit different musical characters, using all registers of the instrument.
Both in the first and third movement, Stamitz uses chords in different ways: sev
eral chords at the beginning of the theme, as a drone accompanying the melody an
d
other times by writing a double melodic line.

The movements

First movement, Allegro

The first movement of Stamitz viola Concerto opens with a long orchestral exposi
tion of the first theme, as you can hear, at first only with strings, building u
p a
crescendo that leads to present the initial theme again, in a more energetic way
with the full orchestra. A bridge passage links to the second theme, to conclud
e
the exposition.
Starting with the first theme, the solo viola picks up the musical ideas introdu
ced by the orchestra and develops them with virtuoso passages, including octaves
and arpeggios in high positions. Then, an ample modulating bridge leads to the s
econd theme played by the viola soloist. After a short elaboration, the soloist
gives
space to the full orchestra to play the first theme in A major. A further develo
pment, of the second theme with a long passage with arpeggios in many keys, take
s us
back again to the original key, where some new material is introduced and develo
ped to conclude the movement with soloist and orchestra playing together the
second theme.
Second movement, Andante moderato
The second movement is an Andante moderato in D minor, rich in pathos, with a ve
ry contrasting mood to the previous and the following movements even though
it alternates the minor-key phrases with more serene episodes in major keys. Th
is is a movement where the performer could try to imitate the composer in his
performance: the novelist Jean Paul Richter in his novel Hesperus, written in 17
95, recreates a concert in which he had heard Stamitz play (the viola d amore) and
,
according to him, Stamitz moved the audience to tears.
Third movement, Rond
The last movement is a very simple and lively Rond, built more around the alterna
tion between soloist and orchestra, with the solo viola introducing the rondo th
eme
and the orchestra repeating it. After this, all other rond episodes are performed
by the solo viola, with the orchestra accompanying and joining the soloist for
the repeat
of the A episode. The last episode of the rondo is really a virtuoso conclusion,
with a lot of arpeggios and the soloist daringly climbing the, till then, unexp
lored regions of
the fingerboard.