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Hello All! As some of you might know, I'm a violist/violinist. Recently, I've begun volunteering at a local hospital, where I play my instrument for patients and their families as part of the hospital's Arts and Healing program (it's really nifty!) Anywho, I try to alternate between taking my violin and viola to the hospital. If you're a string player, you know that the violin has a LOT (and I mean LOT) more pieces in the solo repertoire compared to the viola. And frankly, I'm tired of playing the same stuff over and over again on my viola. SOOO, I'm asking you all, if anyone is interested, to write music for solo viola so I can play some stuff! I would prefer something that doesn't require a piano accompaniment, but its not a hard and fast rule. I'm also open to arrangements of other pieces, or transcriptions of other pieces for other instruments (with the holiday season in full swing, Xmas music would be really nice too). Technically, don't make it so difficult as I won't have much time to prepare (I'd be literally sight-reading most of the time)...think of the Bach Cello Suites for Viola (particularly the first 3). And nothing to avant-garde....it IS for a hospital setting. As an incentive (and a thank you), I'll record the piece for you and send it to you! Let me know if you guys have any questions, and thanks for reading this!

So, @danishali903 called for solo viola pieces. Here are my 2 cents. I really hope the double-stops in the second piece are not uncomfortable to play :D In fact, all those legatures of the second piece can be ignored and substituted by whatever you think is more idiomatic and executable.

@Noah Brode Glad I could be of help. It makes sense since you say that you usually write with an orchestra in mind, as with orchestra can go crazy with double stops because the players will split it themselves (even if it isn't marked divisi it's common practice in my experience).

@SebastianViola Hey, thanks a lot for the really detailed feedback! I have been pretty busy lately, so I'm sorry for the late response, but I really do appreciate it. I'm usually writing for an (imaginary) orchestra, so I don't often use double stops, but you're right that I should do more research into the instruments I'm writing for. In this one, I think I got a bit greedy with wanting to thicken the texture with double stops to give it that 'warm' feeling that Dvorak achieves with the orchestral version, and I didn't stop to think about the difficulty. I've learned my lesson -- any time I use double stops, I'd better check to see if they're possible first. Thanks again for the feedback!

As a fellow violist, I would be happy to contribute! I've already got some ideas and have been meaning to put out some solo viola music so this is all the more reason. Listen to Bach Cello Suites 1-3. They are not particularly difficult from a technical standpoint for the most part, but are considered quite difficult pieces to master because of phrasing and how exposed you are.