The famous viola player William Primrose, who like Lionel Tertis did a great job to make the viola well known and appreciated, said that he was asked this question so many times and always answered properly explaining all the differences between violin and viola, like the size, timbre, tone, tuning, range, etc. etc.

One time he felt a bit naughty, maybe a bit tired of having to explain all these things again and again, so he answered: "The difference between violin and viola is that the viola is a violin with a college education".

I love that Beethoven played the viola. When a composer knows an instrument well, he tends to write great parts for it in his orchestrations! And the viola was my instrument of choice.

I loved the deep resonance of its lowest string, its C. People always asked me what was different about the viola and if I had my instrument in hand, I would play this string with a heavy, resined bow and say, "Instead of having a screechy high E, we have this mellow string! The other four are pretty much the same."

I found that violists like their instruments had a distinctive, warmer tone and character. I stole this description from the most excellent site on the viola, viola-in-music.com because it felt so very, very true and brought back remembrances of screechy violinists I knew who loved to grab the limelight.

Many composers we performed in high school- with the exception of Beethoven's Symphony n.5, 2nd movement and of Hovhaness and his Prayer of St. Gregory- wrote fairly dull parts for my section. We played a lot of percussive offbeats. But feeling part of a magnificient whole gave my days shape and meaning.

Perhaps you are familiar with these pieces that set my viola soul a tremble.

My teacher Eddie Horowitz was convinced that the Russian method of bowing was the best, most relaxed way to bow. I knew it was called the Russian method and that Heifitz used this method, but I didn't know any different. Eddie used to tell me, "Shake your right hand loose from the wrist. Now, keeping it relaxed, place it on the bow."

I would do this and giggle because I would tease him by nearly dropping the bow. He was a very patient man. When Eddie was a young man, he had been offered the opportunity to play professional baseball. He would go to games with his violin case in one hand and his bat case in the other. He told me he had to decide and he chose the violin.

He played weekends with my high school orchestra director, entertaining diners in the Minneapolis Radisson. When I turned 16, my parents treated me to dinner at this elegant restauran. I'd never seen my orchestra director Mr. Brunzell play the violin. His bowing method was different than Eddies. His wrist was stiff and looked awkward. But he played beautifully.

Once my mother was annoyed at me and too busy to call Schmidts to order a replacement string for one of mine that had snapped. "You call them," she grumbled. "You are certainly old enough to handle this."

There were three kinds of strings, those made from sheep gut, steel core strings and synthetic core strings. Eddie wanted me to use gut because it had a warmer sound.

I was insecure about speaking to adults in a professional manner but I really needed the string. I dialed the number and when the owner came on, I innocently said, "I need a G string in gut."

There was a moment of silence and then my mother burst into laughter. The man on the other end seemed quite amused as well.