Karl Weigl

Viola and Piano

Sonata for Viola and Piano

Weigl's harmonic vocabulary is very advanced; it goes beyond Mahler and even early Schoenberg. This advanced vocabulary is very clear in the symphonies and chamber music. In the viola sonata, though, Weigl has consciously simplified it.

Among all Viennese composers, Weigl is the least sentimental. He is nostalgic but never maudlin. He has a clear and recognizable style, and his melodies and motives have a consistent and easily recognizable shape in all of his mature work, as they always employ certain intervals. The miracle is that Weigl nonetheless never repeated himself.

As far as my opinion is concerned, this sonata is the most profound work for viola and piano written by an Austrian-born composer in the 20th century.

- Wolfgang Wölfer-Roth

This edition of Karl Weigl's Sonata for Viola and Piano was made with reference to three documents: a 1940 Holograph of the manuscript score, a pre-1953 score produced by a copyist, and one edited by Nadia Reisenberg and Paul Doktor, published by Markert in 1940 and later ACA in 1968.

The editors of the present version address discrepancies in the later two editions with the 1940 manuscript, notational issues, and performance instructions.