Robert Schumann
Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129
1. Nicht zu schnell
2. Langsam – Lebhafter – Schneller
3. Sehr lebhaft – Kadenz – Tempo I
Antonin Dvorák
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
4. Allegro
5. Adagio ma non troppo
6. Finale (Allegro moderato)
Cello Concertos ©
While pianists and violinists with soloist ambitions can pride themselves on an almost boundless repertoire of solo concertos, cellists find themselves with a much more limited selection
when it comes to performing with an orchestra. Vivaldi composed the first conecrtos for the instrument, but these are not solo concertos in the modern sense of the term, so the honour
of having created the first real solo oncertos for cello falls to Joseph Haydn. He composed one in C major, a relatively early work, and a more mature one in D major, one of the masterworks of the cello repertoire. At approrimately the same time as Haydn the Italian composer Luigi Boccherini wrote a number of cello concertos, of which only one that in B flat major, is played at all frequently – and increasingly in its original version rather than in Grtützmacher’s arrangement.
It was Robert Schumann who wrote the first great, romantic concerto of any real import. As a young man he had tried himself as a cellist, and he remained a great admrirer of the instument. When in later life he began wrork on the concerto, the only one he was to write for the cello, he decided, as he had in the case of the piano concerto, not for a grand virtuoso concerto but rather to try to integrate the solo part into the orchestra, and thus to create more a sinfonia concertante, or rather concerto with obbligato cello.
Unlike Schumann, Dvorák had no particular predilection for the cello which, in his opinion, squeaked the top end of its range and growled at the bottom. None the less, he has to his credit what has become the bestloved cello concerto of all. It was composed during his tenure as conservatoire principal in New York in 1894 and 95, although he did revise the finale after his return to Prague.
RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 1993
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 413
EAN: 5709499413005
