Trevor McTait · © André Rodrigues

On February 14, Trevor McTait performed a recital of solo viola pieces by contemporary Portuguese composers at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. The recital was a preview of an album for solo viola and electronics, due for release in 2026, featuring works by Portuguese composers.

The concert began with Terminus by Igor C. Silva, a 2009 piece that won the second Casa da Música/ESMAE Composition Competition. It is a simple, yet well-crafted piece based on reverberation effects, which, aided by live electronics, create an atmosphere of anticipation through the sound of the viola. The piece is full of glissandos and occasional percussive gestures, taking the listener on a solitary journey that one could imagine taking place in an underground world. This was followed by Un Souffle, Le Rêve... by Eduardo Luís Patriarca. This piece features motifs extending from small repetitions and passages of flute-like sounds, as well as exploring the harmonics of the instrument. There are also more ‘string-like’ areas, yet the piece never loses its fragmentary and interrogative nature. Melancholic viola? Perhaps, but in this 2016 piece, it is reticent and dreamlike above all, as if engaged in an inner, existential search.

Next came Dedans-Dehors, Miguel Azguime’s 2017 piece for viola and electronics. Longer than the previous compositions, it embarks on a sonic exploration that delves into noise, with decisive and powerful gestures from the viola. Here, the instrument deconstructs all the usual clichés we associate with it (sweetness and softness). Miguel Azguime manipulated the live electronics, interacting with the instrument to transport it to another dimension. More than a solo, it is a chamber music composition — a true duo with electronics — extending the sound possibilities of the instrument to the limit, often with rapid and almost violent gestures in some passages. Transfiguring and always on the verge of noise, the sound is both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, as the title suggests.

Three beautiful interpretations of very different pieces had already been performed, when a miniature by Ângela da Ponte was played: a Divertimento originally written for violin in 2017, in which the strings are played without a bow, only with the hands directly on the strings or body of the instrument. The delightful interplay makes you want to keep listening. Perhaps one day Ângela da Ponte will write more divertimento miniatures to form a series. The Divertimento is a piece that truly entertains the listener, and Trevor McTait showed great rigour in demonstrating the pleasure of playing it. There was no melancholy or sweetness here; everything was done for the sheer joy of playing music.

This was followed by Imago, a piece by Hugo Vasco Reis, who has collaborated closely with the viola player on experimental viola and electronics projects. Here, delicate viola sounds are combined with pre-recorded and transformed sounds from a wind turbine and a tapestry. It is a delicate exploration of sound in the smallest detail, but by no means sugar-coated; this piece is made of sensual and almost excessive materiality, even in the ‘external’ sounds of the electronics.

Finally, there was Noctis Lumina by Daniel Moreira. This piece was perhaps the most evidently idiomatic, exploring the familiar possibilities of the viola and its timbre but taking them to new places.

Trevor McTait · © André Rodrigues

Entitled Fifty-Fifty, the album project that this recital anticipated stems from artistic and personal reflections. According to the performer, it conveys ‘the idea of duality [...]: the fusion between the viola and electronics; Trevor McTait’s dual nationality (Portugal/United Kingdom); and the life journey that has led to this moment — reaching the age of 50, with 25 years spent training and performing in the United Kingdom, and 25 years spent pursuing a career as a musician with the Remix Ensemble Casa da Música in Portugal’.

It is an important contribution to enhancing the contemporary viola repertoire (it is worth mentioning that another viola player who has been working in the same vein is João Pedro Delgado). And, finally, it is an excellent recital by a great performer committed to contemporary creation. With works that are very close to the instrument, but beyond clichés.

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