Gideon Lewensohn's ViolAlive: The Composer as Stage Director - Recontextualization of the Concerto as A Gestural Genre

The current study explores musical gesture as the constitutive element in ViolAlive, a contemporary work for viola and ensemble. The piece is defined as "Theater Music," and consists of two gestural layers: overt and covert. The overt gestures, that is, the struggle that the viola undergoes, and the stage layout, are explicitly set out in the composer's instructions at the front of the score. The covert gestures are participants in a cultural discourse, which gains in dramatic quality as a result of the viola's existential struggle. These gestures are, in fact, very subtle musical allusions to the Western musical canon and, as such, function as sources of strength and endurance for the struggling viola and as musical locomotives. Thus, it can be said that ViolAlive re-contextualizes the Concerto as a gestural, theatrical genre.