Musicon / Beethoven / Musical education / The Viola
-The Viola
The viola is next in size to the violin, and is tuned at the interval of a fifth lower. Its highest string is A, which is the second string of the violin, and its lowest C.
Its tone, which sometimes contains a comical suggestion of a boy’s voice in mutation, is lacking in incisiveness and brilliancy, but for this it compensates by a wonderful richness and filling quality, and a pathetic and inimitable mournfulness in melancholy music.
It blends beautifully with the violoncello, and is often made to double that instrument’s part for the sake of color effect–as, to cite a familiar instance, in the principal subject of the Andante in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
From: H. Krehbiel’s, How to Listen to Music; excerpts, edited by Musicon
Karajan Conducting Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, Part 2, Andante con moto: