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Scan 163
Musical instruments, 1925
8 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 149. See the scan on archive.org.
1In this connection, attention may be called to the fact that these brilliant Violin figures are ineffective upon the Piano; therefore, Von Bülow, in his four hand Piano transcription frankly substitutes purely pianistic figures such as we see at h, with most satisfactory results. These pianistic arpeggios, it is needless to say, would be much more difficult if played on the Violin, while passages in "flat keys," as at i, having no open strings, would be very clumsy, not to say impossible, for the violinist.
3VIOLA
5A convenient way of remembering the Viola and its character is to regard it as an instrument like the Violin, but with a compass a fifth lower (See cut on page 138) hence its first and second strings are A and D while the third and fourth are G and C. The former two are of plain gut, but the latter are wound with silver wire. As the mission of the Viola is to render the tenor part in a string quartet or a symphony, it is often called upon to play passages with a wide range. Compare the two notations of this passage from Elgar's Variations. The first (a) jumps from clef to clef, the second (b) avoids this by the use of the alto clef.
7Such jumping back and forth from one clef to the
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