For Viola and Piano this is the composer's first opused work. Premiered at the Wigmore Hall in July 1959 by Cecil Aronowitz and Margaret Kitchen.Wood: In 1957 I knew I had newly discovered the music of Schoenberg and hispupils and I knew at once that they were to show me the way forward for my music; as indeed they have ever since. The revelation was primarily an emotional experience for me and however imperfectly their influence wasreceived it was obviously reflected in the all-out chromaticism (new for me then) in the many chains of twelve notes or lesser chromatic formations (which do not here amount to serial working and have only rarely done sosince) in the characteristic harmonic and rhythmic formations the wide and sometimes angular intervals of the melodies and in general the introverted romanticism. Anyway I knew then that this was the sort of music that Ihenceforth would want to write and so I called these Variations my Opus One.The declamatory Introduction leads into the Theme heard on the viola. Six Variations follow of which No.3 is the most violent and No.4 the mostsustainedly lyrical. The recitative-like sixth variation leads into the Finale a more extended movement. The Theme returning on the piano leads to a climax at which there is a citation from Beethoven’s C minor Variations forpiano. Then their characteristics sequence of chords is heard on the piano as an accompaniment to the final statement of my own theme on the viola in the closing bars of the work.

Ursula Mamlok was born in Berlin in 1923, but was forced to emigrate via Ecuador to New York in 1939 because of her Jewish descent. In 2006 she returned to the city where she was born.Above Clouds for viola and piano, created in 2013/14, is one of Mamlok's most recent compositions and is no longer than about three minutes. In this period, however, many a thing happens, even if, as is often the case with Mamlok, the dramatization of the piece rather not follows traditional principles. This is why the end of the piece comes a surprise, when you least expect it. / Alto Et Piano