IV. starts at 18:16

Es de argentina

I remember that! I lived in the DC area at the time and went to one of those rehearsals. They were always one of my favorite groups - the energy and very personal interpretations were something to behold.

You don't think Steinhardt and Dalley are good? Come on.....lol. In terms of sound, who's better?

The Applebaum didn't fall very far from the tree.

big oof haha

I think you can’t just say that based on one interpretation of the work. I’m about to play it this month as a soloist and even cellists seem to be pleased. And we do go over the A harmonic, the viola is a much richer instrument that you think. I suggest listening to Maxim Rysanov, Gerárd Caussé and Tabea Zimmermann

Yeahhh...I kind of have to agree here. Despite the poor sound quality, you can tell it doesn't quite sound right on the viola. The sections which sound rich and beautiful on the cello fall flat because the viola is sonically different and not just because they are separated by an octave, e.g., the cello A string is more intense than the viola A string. The last movement suffers less by this and may even make more sense on the viola (the lower notes anyway) since low notes and fast writing can sound muddy sometimes. Unfortunately since neither Mozart or Haydn left a dedicated viola concerto, these transcriptions might be the best we can do for the period. (No one needs to remind me of the Sinfonia Concertante.) Kind of odd since Mozart actually PREFERRED the viola to the violin, but I guess there was no audience demand to hear the instrument in a solo setting.

@@Apalexpe do you go exactly one octave higher than the cello? Would be very interested to hear your version as I also believe more in Casimir Ney's view than that the viola has a range of 3 octaves. Van you post it if you recorded it please?

Well it was written for the cello, so it would sound better on the cello. As a viola player, I was very interested to see this (and puzzled when it changed the C major concerto to D major, rather than arranging the D major concerto). Violists do go up high, but it is easier to do so on the cello for lots of reasons (including gravity).

I'm not sure if the effect is truly lost. Personally and just an opinion too, I prefer this performed on any instrument that is not the cello and besides the viola, have listened to the solo guitar and solo double bass interpretations of this and prefer hearing it than on a cello. I find the sound of the cello very off putting and usually if I listen to any work originally written for the cello, it would need to be played on another instrument with the exception being the violoncello piccolo. To each their own!