Senior Arpeggione: Jeanette (18)

This year, I played my arrangement of ‘Blues Fantasy’ by Eduard Pütz for 6 cellos (arranged for 7 violas) and an arrangement of Popper’s ‘Polonaise de Concert’, both of which were really fun to work on! They’re both very different styles of piece, the Pütz being a jazz piece with lush melodies and contrasting almost atonal passages, as opposed to the Popper which is a very flashy show piece. I loved working on both of these as it really got me to stretch my boundaries of viola playing. The Popper chamber group also decided to play the piece from memory in the concert, which was super fun as we could all communicate a lot more to each other, rather than being absorbed in our music. The ‘Blues Fantasy’ was a little more difficult though, as there were often passages where everyone was in unison, so if even one person was out of time it would be really obvious. But working together with the course tutors, and Martin Outram as a visiting tutor, really helped us to mesh our sound together to sound like one complete group. I played Viola 1 in the Popper & Viola 7 in the Pütz, and I think that going from tons of melodies to the bassline was quite eye-opening, because even though the audience mainly listens out for the big tunes played by the 1^st player, the bassline and accompaniment part is equally as important in keeping the group together.

I really enjoyed this course as this was my last one, and I’m so grateful to Hidersine and the Joan Dickson Chamber Music Fund for the bursary!

Thank you again for the opportunity!

Sincerely,

Jeanette (18)  -  viola