Meditation for Viola

This is a work for solo viola in the classical (or maybe Late Baroque/Mannerist?) idiom responding to @danishali903 's request for original solo viola music. It was (kind of obviously) inspired by Bach's famous Prelude to the Cello Suite No. 1. The chord progression and 'melody' are based on the first movement of a piece that I uploaded to the old version of the site, "Three Simple Songs" for violin with guitar accompaniment (I think this has now been lost). Generally, I think the tone of the piece is pretty suitable for a hospital floor.

I watched the bowings for Bach's Prelude and it made me feel pretty confident that there should be no slurs in this one, but I wonder if it wouldn't get tiring to hack away at a viola for nearly five minutes straight. I'll defer to better judgments on this and other aspects of difficulty/plausibility.

One final thing: the 9/8 time signature had me a bit confused about how to mark the tempo. Right now, it's marked "Moderato" because the dotted quarter notes come at about 100 BPM. However, it feels more like an Allegro or even Vivace tempo, and when I put it through my sound library, it automatically marked it as 150 BPM in (non-dotted) quarter notes. Which way is correct?

Sorry for the book. Thanks for listening!

I (a violist as well) am really enjoying the fruitful results of danishali's request. This one is my favorite so far. The others tended to short pieces more on the side of practice, but this piece feels quite complete.

In response to your question would this get tiring doing it separate as opposed to slurs - no. I wouldn't say separate is particularly more tiring that slurs and generally the pieces that are exhausting are the ones that require very fast bow/finger movement all across the strings and lots of shifting, neither of which your piece has.

There are a few places where I think it does repeat a cycles a few too many times, but that's really up to your ear to decide. At measure 30 however, where you have the surprise of the C natural, it seemed for a moment you were going to shift the character in an interesting and unexpected way (and one that would be very Bach like indeed) but instead you just continue on to a ascending scale before the recapitulation. I'd like to see that part expanded upon as I think it would add to the dramatic tension and make the harmonic release of the upwards scale into the restatement of the begging much more satisfying.

Nice job.

It feels like an etude. Playing the beginning of it briefly, it felt like a student's piece that someone made to be more expressive.
The modulation to A was sharp and awkward. The other ones work better because of the use of the V7 chord.
I don't see the parallel to the Bach Suites. They all play with a certain gimmick but are by no means bound to it. This one feels obligated and bound to a certain technical style, which contributes to the basic feeling of it.
Putting slurs in could change it in a basic way that would change the style subtly but enjoyably.
Cheers.

Thanks to both of you for your comments; you've both been very helpful to me lately.

It definitely does get repetitive, both with the literal (or transposed) repetition of sections, as @SebastianViola mentioned, and with the homogeneous phrasing, as @Monarcheon mentioned. The original piece for guitar and violin had a bit more variety. I understand how you could pick up an 'etude' vibe.

I was thinking that I (or @danishali903 , if he ends up playing it) could even completely axe the first two sections and start at "B" and it would be just as well. 

I think it's very nice!

I didn't get bored at all. It reminds to tha large solo for viola in "MAdrigal Opera" (P. Glass).

Thanks, Luis! I like Philip Glass, but I haven't heard that piece yet. I'll look it up today