It's a great season for viola lovers

3 L.A. institutions all turn to Brahms' string quintets and/or sextets over six days.

- MARK SWED MUSIC CRITIC

YURA LEE plays viola in "A Brahmsian Affair" Nov. 22 at Zipper Hall.

It’s late autumn — viola time.

The viola should perhaps be the instrument of summer. Its tone suggests sumptuous ripeness from the top of its range to bottom. But falling between the violin’s soaring brilliance and the cello’s corporeality, the viola also signifies transition. Toru Takemitsu called his tender, mistily opaque viola concerto “Ring Around Autumn.” By recognizing the solo instrument as a conveyor of stocktaking, it colors darkly, evoking changing leaves and sunset.

Last week, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Colburn School and MOCA independently hopped on the fall-harvesting viola bandwagon. On top of that, one of the season’s most alluring new recordings is of Morton Feldman’s “The Viola in My Life,” by one of today’s leading violists, Antoine Tamestit.

The real surprise of the week was that, in their chamber music series, the L.A. Phil, LACO and Colburn all programmed one or more of Brahms’ seldomheard string quintets and/or string sextets.

Brahms wasn’t the first to juice up the string quartet with a second violin. Mozart’s late string quintets (sometimes called viola quintets) demonstrated the heavenly richness that an extra viola brings to the string quartet. But Brahms took the next step in his quintets (with doubled violas) and sextets (also double cellos) adding his rhapsodically “Brahmsian” plush, soul-warming thickened textures.