The landmark 50th International Viola Congress took place in Paris (yes, France) from January 19th – 23rd, 2026. A day-by-day post-congress blog is delivered to you by Kristofer Skaug.

Day 2: Tuesday, January 20th, 2026
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Browsing through the Congress programme booklet during breakfast on this 2nd day, it dawned upon me how many difficult choices I’d have to make. So many interesting and must-see events! The programme booklet offered to help, with a chapter called “What kind of congress attendee are you?” …

This chapter provided a questionnaire that was designed to lead you to a track suitable for “your type”, which could be e.g. “The Engaged Explorer”, “The Experience Collector”, “The Guardian of Memory” and so on. A very nice idea (applause for whoever came up with it!), given the numerous options. But unfortunately my tastes were too varied, so this did not help to draft up a personal “itinerary”, even just for today, and desperation grew as my wishlist ballooned. I even missed most of the morning sessions, paralyzed by indecision. In the end we chose the pragmatic solution of just walking down to the nearest metro station (Bonne Nouvelle) to buy ourselves week passes, so that transportation at least would not become an issue.

We then bit the bullet and headed for what promised to be an interesting programme at the Conservatoire municipal Nadia et Lili Boulanger – 9me arrondissement (for short CMA9), at some 10 minutes’ brisk walking distance from the CNSAD main venue.

Starting with core viola topics: Nitya Isoard‘s deep-dive lecture explored Hindemith’s musical language, offering new insights into his compositions. Taking examples from the 1937 solo viola sonata, she demonstrated some of Hindemith’s characteristic use of the sonata form, counterpoint, rhythm, tonal language, dynamics, ornamentation and so on. This was truly for the connoisseurs, and although I have heard this particular sonata several times, a few listening examples along with the shown score fragments might have helped my ability to follow. Nevertheless the bits I did manage to swallow in real time were interesting enough.

Moving on to Brahms, Paul Silverthorne presented his first-hand experiences from researching and playing the viola / clarinet sonatas op.120. Side-by-side comparisons of the manuscript, viola and clarinet versions would reveal how the sonata originally had passages that were technically overdemanding for clarinet (e.g. breath-wise), yet relatively playable on the viola. Also the draft manuscript of Wilhelm Kupfler’s viola adaptations (with annotations from Brahms) shows some deviations (e.g. octave choices) which were approved by Brahms but have since been “lost” in the published parts. Some of these variant fragments were performed by Silverthorne. Although the story of Brahms’ seminal encounter with clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld is well documented, these oddities do leave some space for viola conspiracy theories about the originally intended instrument.

The third composer in focus this afternoon in CMA9 was Berlioz. Luca Trombetta presented the lecture “The Humor of Harold in Italy: Navigating Comic Irony from Score to Stage“, based on his cooperation on this topic with musicologist Marianna Ritchey. The key thesis seemed to be that one could “re-imagine” the narrative of Harold as bathed in irony rather than heroic romanticism. The supporting arguments included autobiographical aspects from Berlioz’ life, as well as a proposed tendency of French Romantic authors to lean heavily on irony, thereby superimposing comedy upon tragedy. Both arguments were supported by Ritchey’s research on the writer Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), who knew and even collaborated artistically with Berlioz. A fitting example was identified in Gautier’s short story “Onuphrius” (published in 1833, one year before Berlioz premiered his “viola concerto”), in which the anti-heroic protagonist exhibits striking analogies to Harold. Trombetta even ventured to characterize the relationship between Berlioz and Gautier as “A 19th-Century Bromance“. 🙂

We stayed put in the CMA9 auditorium to hear Dutch violist Anna Jurriaanse‘s recital titled “The Composers in my Life“, consisting of solo miniatures written for her by composers from all over the world. In the list of names, I recognized Dutch composers Amarante Nat, Joshua Herwig and Kaja Majoor. It proved to include highly varied and surprising ideas to exploit the possibilities of the viola in contemporary music idioms.

Sadly before Anna’s recital was over, I had to rush back to the CNSAD main venue to participate in a roundtable discussion with fellow former IVC hosts in the beautiful theater hall, reflecting on the challenges and impacts of organizing such congresses, and perspectives for the future. IVS Treasurer Emlyn Stam moderated this session, and IVS president-elect Karin Dolman had prepared a short film to introduce the topic(s), which you can see here (YouTube):

The most senior congress hosts present were Marcus Thompson (13th IVC, Boston 1985) and Peter Slowik (21st IVC, Evanston 1993). It was certainly somewhat thrilling to sit in the descending line from these “congress pioneers” on stage, along with many others that i have met through the years. I don’t think there have ever been this many – 14 in all – former IVC hosts together on a stage. This very unusual reunion was celebrated with cake & bubbles afterward :-).

I had high hopes for Frédéric Lainé‘s lecture “Viola Players in France from Casimir-Ney to Théophile Laforge (1850-1918)“, eyeing an opportunity to learn some local history. However, the lecture was held in French, with real-time audio-to-text translation through Google projected on the screen. The print was too small to read comfortably, and the translation was continually reworked as each sentence progressed, so it was simply too hard to follow. I should have spent more time reheating my school French! I was told we could probably get a printed copy of the manuscript later, on request. The musical examples performed by Jean Sautereau were anyway enjoyable.

Finally then, the evening concert with featured artist Tabea Zimmermann in the splendid Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. She played Kurtág’s “Movement for viola and orchestra” with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, conducted by Gábor Káli. This was a big treat, a rarely performed piece. She followed up with a selection from Kurtág’s Signs, Games and Messages. You could tell from the exuberant applause that the concert hall was full of viola fans :-).

All in all a day packed with events, and I felt pleasantly tired. So instead of hunting for a reasonably-priced beer, I decided to go back to my room in order to plan tomorrow’s itinerary carefully, so as to avoid another choice-overload anxiety attack similar to this morning’s.

Disclaimer #1: Any opinion expressed here is the author’s own, not that of the DVS.

Disclaimer #2: Due to the incredibly rich programme at this congress, it was physically impossible to see (and hence report from) more than perhaps 25-30% of all the events. A high level summary (listing also all of the Dutch contributions) is given on this page, and more details can of course be found on the official congress website.

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