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For Antoine Tamestit, discovering the viola when he was a young, wannabe string player was a Goldilocks moment that changed his life. ‘
When he was 5, the Paris native began taking violin lessons, but he soon found himself longing for an instrument with a lower register. When he was 9 or 10, he tried the cello. But he quickly realized that it didn’t suit him, either. Then his violin teacher showed him the viola, and it immediately felt just right.
“I didn’t see the instrument with its limitations of repertoire,” he said. “I saw it with the right tessiture [range] for me. It was just a bigger violin. It was just a compromise between two worlds that I loved — violin and cello. It was more my tessiture, one that resonated inside of me. And to this to this day, it is my favorite instrument.”
Tamestit, who is set to make his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut Sept. 26-28 with guest conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, has become one of the few full-time viola soloists in the world.
Unlike the oft-heard works written for the piano, violin or cello, orchestras rarely feature viola concertos and when they do, they often have their own principal violist take the solo role. But Tamestit has refused to be deterred and he has doggedly carved out a solo career, not so much with the goal of being a star, but with the idea of showcasing this instrument he loves so much.
“I decided to not stop whenever I faced complications from promoters or orchestras who thought that they could not really invite a viola soloist,” he said. “I just found ways and different repertoire — new music and transcriptions — and just explained that passion for the instrument until I got what I have today, which is exactly what I dreamed of. I couldn’t be happier.”
Tamestit devotes about 30 to 40 percent of his time to chamber music, including solo recitals, and the rest is spent performing concertos with orchestras all over the world. In 2023-24, he made debuts with three of the world’s most celebrated ensembles: the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. “I felt very lucky,” he said. “In a way, it’s strange that at my age — I’m now 45 years old — that I still do debuts as if I were a very young artist.”
But Tamestit thinks the timing of these debuts couldn’t be better. When he joined the Berlin Philharmonic, for example, he already knew many of the musicians from other projects, and they couldn’t believe that he hadn’t played with the orchestra previously. “I felt much better — if I may say with a lot of respect and admiration — because it’s a bunch of my friends that I get to play with, and I felt comfortable and excited to play with them. It’s not something completely unknown and scary.”
Since 2008, he has played what is believed to be the first viola constructed by Antonio Stradivari, one of the most celebrated luthiers ever. The 1672 instrument is on loan from the Habisreutinger Foundation in Switzerland. Only 11 violas (or 12, depending how one is classified) by Stradivari exist, and just a few of those are played regularly. Tamestit called his a “very special one,” and in some ways, it was a kind of experimental instrument because the maker used poplar for the back instead of the usual maple, which gives it a warmer color with lower frequencies and slower vibrations. In addition, it has a slightly unusual shape, being flatter, wider and not quite as long as many typical violas. Tamestit praised its “warm and brilliant sound” and said that it “wants to sing on every string.”
One of the problems for viola players is the lack of significant concertos, compared with the many written for violin or piano. To help fill that void, Tamestit has actively premiered works for the instrument, including his debut of Italian composer Francesco Filidei’s Viola Concerto with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2023-24. Tamestit acknowledges that he didn’t completely understand the piece when he was practicing it on his own, but the minute he joined the orchestra for rehearsals, everything made sense, and he immediately appreciated its dramaturgical ideas and orchestral colors.
“It’s just a magical piece,” he said. “It’s so virtuosic, but it’s also so funny. It has seven movements that actually are a sort of viola joke but in the best way. It’s like a viola player who discovers playing and discovers its [the instrument’s] abilities and sounds.” He also praised Jörg Widmann’s Viola Concerto, which Tamestit premiered in 2015 with the Orchestre de Paris. “I think those two pieces really stand out and are really for incredible,” he said.
For his Chicago debut, Tamestit will play one of the most popular and frequently heard solo works written for the instrument, William Walton’s Viola Concerto, which the English composer wrote in 1929. Only Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, which uses the viola as kind of musical protagonist, is played more often, but it is not strictly speaking a concerto. Walton’s work is a late Romantic work with singing double stops and no shortage of virtuosic displays. Of the concertos written for the viola, Tamestit said, “It’s the most achieved one. It’s the most complete. It’s the most convincing.”
He first played the concerto at a French competition in 2000. He prepared the work with the help of his teacher at Yale University, Jesse Levine, who had him listen to performances by many of the great violists of the past, including Raphael Hillyer, Walter Primrose and Walter Trampler. “When I play the Walton,” Tamestit said, “it brings me back to not my childhood, but to my first concerts with orchestra. I remember that. It really stayed with me.”
Tamestit’s first trip to the Chicago area came in 2001 when he won first prize in the well-respected Primrose International Viola Competition, which was founded in 1979 by the American Viola Society. That year’s edition of the contest occurred at Elmhurst College, and he met Charles Pikler, then the CSO’s principal viola, who served on the jury. Along with that connection, Tamestit had long followed the CSO through its discs, including a 1996 album that features Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with soloist Maxim Vengerov, then music director Daniel Barenboim and with Pikler playing some key viola solos.
Tamestit suspects he will likely be back with the CSO soon, because he is “very close” with Klaus Mäkelä, the Finnish conducting sensation announced in April as the ensemble’s next music director, starting in 2027-28. “I couldn’t feel more lucky about that,” he said.
