LDV75

Three large-scale pieces for viola and orchestra make up your new recording for La Dolce Volta. Do the two works that frame Walton’s Concerto, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Gwenaël Grisi’s On the Reel , also belong to the concerto genre? Adrien La Marca: Walton’s Viola Concerto is emblematic of the genre for our instrument and is core repertory for us. It’s the great viola concerto, though finally it doesn’t get played often enough for my liking, and is too little known. It is central to this project, even if each work has its own identity and its own place here. Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet is actually amajorpremiere. This recording presents it in a new form, for viola and orchestra. I’ve played this work a lot, but with piano. It’s very exciting to view it through the powerful sound of the orchestra. And so, yes, it is like a concerto! Gwenaël Mario Grisi’s On the Reel was commissioned by the Liège Royal Philharmonic. It’s a concerto for viola and orchestra in one movement, of which I was lucky enough to give the first performance in concert during my residency with the orchestra last year, and which continued to evolve for this recording. I think it’s the ideal link betweenWalton and Prokofiev. And it too is a premiere. So we can really say that this recording is a tale of three concertos!