Doris da Costa and Tom Hedges' Voil Viola Duets was written for Viola and Violin players wanting to play duets with friends and teachers or for new Viola pupils swapping from the Violin to the Viola.Changing instruments can be challenging as the alto clef requires completely new reading skills regardless of a player’s standard on the Violin. In this book an alternative Violin part is included to help to familiarise a Violinist with the music and to add instrumental flexibility.A large variety of styles and genres are included: the 16th Century Madrigal the Baroque Concerto dance forms arrangements of traditionalfavourites world music jazz or swing numbers and programmatic 21st century entries.There is much here to challenge the musical and technical demands of the Viola and Violin: string crossing shifting (up to 3rd position) chromatic scales as well as a range of articulation and playing techniques. Time signatures are varied with duets in simple compound and irregular meters. An assortment of key signatures and modes add further challenges.The pieces vary in difficulty: from an easy grade 3 standard to a moderately difficult grade 5. The duets can be used for concert repertoire for GCSE assessments for sight-reading practice to support technical studies or to round off a lesson.
