Classical music's most deserving underdog.

How is lightning like a violist's fingers? Neither one strikes in the same place twice.

How do you keep your violin from getting stolen? Put it in a viola case.

What's the difference between a viola and a trampoline? You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.

Such is life for those tortured souls who choose to pursue careers on the viola, the symphony orchestra's most ridiculed instrument. Never does a rehearsal pass when you aren't a second-class citizen.

Violists got their reps from a few bad eggs: hacks who couldn't handle the technical demands of the violin's blister-inducing repertoire and retreated to a seemingly less demanding instrument in order to continue to win gigs. But quips aside, these oversized violins with throaty tenors and the people who play them are vital to music. They provide an ensemble piece's inner voice—the meat in the harmonic sandwich. In fact, Mozart, a virtuoso violinist, gravitated to the viola in salon quartet sessions in order to feel the music's infrastructure.

So why's the viola still such good joke fodder? Start with its size. Petite violas (length varies depending on how much ax you can handle and how much sound you want) are about 16 inches long, which is already lengthier than the average violin. Now imagine how difficult it is to play the violin: You're contorting your left arm so that you can nearly massage the outside of your left shoulder with your left thumb while sending your fingers toward and away from your face in different increments of fingerboard real estate, at different speeds; your right hand is involved in something else entirely. Now try as much with a bigger fiddle: one you can barely fit under your chin, strung with thicker (and therefore less responsive) strings, requiring a clunkier bow and more right-hand torque. There's no way around it: Violas are awkward, which makes them difficult to master.

But they're also the workhorses of the string section. Violas can wail—their highest-pitched string (the A) is the second highest of the violin's—as well as growl—their lowest-pitched string (the C) is also the lowest string of the cello. That's a lot of potential tonal ground to cover. And composers don't usually think twice about exploiting it. Viola parts typically traverse three clefs' worth of scales: the tenor, alto, and treble, which is, incidentally, the only one violinists ever need read.

Violas are also hard to hear, and hence difficult to connect with, due to an earthy timbre. They can sound mellow, or muffled even, particularly in their middle to lower range. In fact, without the strengths of a dynamic performer's bow, violas can often leave new listeners unsatisfied.

Combine these issues, and you'll start to see a pretty compelling case for why many of history's great composers didn't consider the viola star material, but rather an accompanist. In fact, it wasn't until the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries that composers began to write solo viola pieces. Of course, violists now have scores of good works from which to choose—sonatas by Brahms and Shostakovich and concertos by Bartók, Hindemith, Walton, and Kurtag, to name a few.

But the viola deserves more. Enter 24-year-old violist Cathy Basrak, who has recorded one of the more intriguing classical records of the new year: American Viola Works (Cedille Records), a disc that not only showcases the viola's unique solo voice but offers five great, somewhat obscure, contemporary U.S.-born pieces. Here, Basrak knocks pretty confidently on the front doors of the world's few viola celebs—Yuri Bashmet, say, or Kim Kashkashian—and manages to nudge her way in.