CHRONIC back trouble and left-hand tendonitis may be a thing of the past for viola players following the development of a dramatic new design that diminishes the strain of playing. An instrument that resembles a Dalí-inspired melted viola is causing such excitement that there is a two-year waiting-list.

Although the body is spruce and maple, the traditional ebony fingerboard is replaced by Formica to give it a lighter weight. Its eccentric shape also reduces the strain of arm and wrist stretching. Philip Heyman, principal viola with Welsh National Opera, says: “It’s a major advance, a very successful development.”

He has been playing it for three months now. Already, he has noted a reduction in the neck ache he was suffering from his normal instrument. “I’m playing it exclusively because I’m so happy with it,” he says. “It has a very mellow sound. It doesn’t sound like a different instrument.”

When he appeared as a guest viola player with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra recently, the conductor Sir Charles Mackerras was impressed: “It looked very extraordinary against the others playing on normal violas. But it certainly sounded good. This could be an exciting development.”

The instrument, whose $12,000 (£7,300) cost is comparable to that of a normal viola, was made in America, at the Oregon workshop of David Rivinus.

Heyman says: “The only thing sacrificed is visual symmetry. Does the shape change do anything to the sound? No.”

The design changes, he says, will rescue the careers of several professional players whose musical working lives were suddenly — and prematurely — ended by serious and debilitating injuries.

He says of the strain on the wrist caused by the conventional viola: “Pretend you are reaching for a round door- knob with your left hand. You are going to open the door by turning the knob counterclockwise just as far as your shoulder, arm and hand will allow you to twist. The position that results from this twisting motion is called supination.

“Violinists and violists hold their left arms in a supined position for hours on end, despite the knowledge that this is orthopaedically very unhealthy. Players start to feel the pain in the shoulders.”

The new fingerboard design lessens the amount of supination required of the player’s left arm significantly, he says. “Suddenly the stretch to the viola C string in first position is as comfortable as playing the D string in third position.”

The neck is also further over to the right. “That means you can get your hand round the instrument more easily,” Heyman says.

The viola was established as one of the three principal members of the violin family by 1535, but it has suffered as a solo instrument by comparison with the greater brilliance of the violin and the depth of the cello.

Mozart was an excellent player of both the violin and viola. In his concerto for the two instruments, he treated them as equals. In the 19th century, the viola shared the technical advances of the violin, with most violists beginning as violinists. The viola, it has been said, is most at home in chamber music.

Heyman says: “There’s a smaller range of expression, although viola players would probably say ‘what nonsense’. It’s not so much a solo instrument as the cello and violin, so perhaps fewer people take it up.”

Tim Homfray of Classical Music magazine says of the new design: “This strange beast might turn out to be one of the most valuable innovations in string-instrument technology in a very long time.”