Lecture Recital at the 2026 AVS Festival, James Madison University

https://www.americanviolasociety.org/avs-festival/

The Voice of the Viola: Betsy Jolas’s Works for Viola

French composer Betsy Jolas (b. 1926) has written a body of captivating and beguiling works for the viola. While she once joked that she belonged to the musical movement called “marginal,” she has become one of the most important French woman composers of our time. A trailblazing woman composer who has blended Messiaen’s expressivity with Boulezian intricacy, Jolas infuses her music with a sense of lyricism.

This lecture recital will illuminate her musical style through the analysis and performance of two works featuring the viola: Quatre Duos for viola and piano (1979), and Épisode Sixieme for solo viola (1984). I will address the dominant thread of lyricism throughout her works, her flexible rhythmic organization, and her timbral variety. I will also use the richness of her biography—her French/American duality, her early friendships with James Joyce and other modernist intellectuals, and her career as a teacher—to shed light on her music.

Each movement of the Quatre Duos is an abstract portrait of a woman. It first originated as the Examination piece at the Paris Conservatory. Jolas allows the viola to become a kaleidoscopic instrument. She understands it better than most, plumbing its un-explored corners for subtle and fresh sounds.

Épisode Sixieme is essentially a vocal piece for the viola. Lyricism is the dominant mode of the piece, even if it becomes submerged by other music. Capricious skittering gestures, far-flung timbres, and jagged rhythms momentarily distract, but the melodic voice always re-emerges, exerting its subtle pull on the narrative.

Jolas’s music is perfectly suited to the viola: lyrical, elusive, and imaginative, and her music should be included in every violist’s repertoire. I hope that this lecture recital will bring further and renewed attention to this trailblazing woman composer.