Antoine Tamestit Returns

Bach, Cello Suites 1/3/5 (arr. viola), A. Tamestit (Naïve, 2013) Bach, Partita No. 2 (arr. viola) / Ligeti, Sonata for Solo Viola, A. Tamestit (Naïve, 2007)

Charles T. Downey, Tamestit ably straddles the cello-music-on-viola gap at Kennedy Center (Washington Post, April 26)

The viola and the cello have the same tuning, an octave apart, but the transfer of one instrument’s music to the other is not without challenges. French violist Antoine Tamestit played both borrowed music and a modern masterwork in a Sunday evening recital presented by Washington Performing Arts. The event marked his return to the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater more than a decade after his debut there.

Tamestit played two of the three solo cello suites of Bach he has recorded on the viola for the Naïve label. At times one misses the gravitas of the lower instrument, on the low notes of the C and G preludes, for example, or the folksy drone section of the C suite’s Gigue... [Continue reading]

Antoine Tamestit, viola (on 1672 "Mahler" Stradivarius viola)
Music by Bach, Ligeti
Washington Performing Arts
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

SEE ALSO:
jfl, Ionarts at Large: Widmann's New Viola Concerto (Ionarts, March 15, 2016)

---, Ionarts at Large: BRSO Season Opening Concerts (Ionarts, October 7, 2012)

Tim Page, From Antoine Tamestit, Arresting Viola Voicings (Washington Post, November 25, 2003)