Romantic viola sonatas for amateurs

[britishcomposer]

Draeseke's sonatas are among the most profound of his works, but they take some cracking interpretatively; I've no idea about their level of difficulty. Unfortunately, there is no really good recording of them available. That on AKCoburg has a soloist with a rather nasal tone, and in any case they would really be better played on the viola alta.

Alan, which recordings do you mean?
I have one recorded from a broadcast some 10, 15 years or so ago with Jürgen Kussmaul and Werner Genuit. They performed the F major Sonata WoO 26.

[eschiss1]

AKCoburg, a label that with Alan Krueck's death may no longer exist except in part (long story?), produced some really, really good recordings (... I think- at least, they stick in my mind and I wouldn't be without them too happily, I say...) of various chamber works by Felix Draeseke over a period of several years in the 1990s mostly.  (I have myself the viola sonatas, the cello sonata and various piano works, the clarinet sonata/violin arrangement/violin scene, and maybe my favorites of Draeseke's works I know so far, his two string quintets, played, like the viola alta sonatas, on more standard instrumentations - though the A major quintet was written for an ensemble using the then-new violotta (and another recording from AK-Coburg has the same work with the original instrumentation.))  The A major quintet reminds me a bit of Schubert if only in general often-quiet and... sweet? - gemutlich ? - lyrical manner... - the F major quintet takes some works by middle-to-late Beethoven as a challenge and inspiration (as do certain works of Mendelssohn, Stenhammar and others) and benefits, but really I enjoy both quintets very much. ... that said, the clarinet disc maybe least so marginally (and even that I hum to myself often enough- so- only marginally less! ... fortunately that sonata has been recorded again just recently and so is more available than some of the others...) - really - all of the above- if you can find them... 
I haven't yet heard the others (the string quartets, the English horn and lieder disc, etc.) Alan (Krueck)'s small label released. (I have heard quartet no.3, but only because I made MIDIs of it myself.)

Anyhow, I assume those are the recordings Alan Howe is referring to. (There is another recording of the 2nd viola sonata besides the one you mention, that on the draeseke.org page, I think, whose performers are James Przygocki & Theresa Bogard.

Eric

[JimL]

What is (or was) the difference between the viola alta and the standard viola?