Post by erik on Apr 3, 2021 17:14:02 GMT -5
The first Cello Concerto from the great mid-to-late 19th century French composer Camille Saint-Saens is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight, performed by one of America's top cellists and the orchestra that he was once a member of.
Saint-Saens: CELLO CONCERTO NO. 1 IN A MINOR, OP. 33
The hugely influential Hector Berlioz’s works of the first third of the 19th century led to an explosion of great composers of his native France. Georges Bizet, Charles Gounod, and Eduoard Lalo were among these titans of 19th century French music. Also among those was Camille Saint-Saens, whose life spanned from 1835 (while Berlioz was having his biggest notoriety) to 1921 (in the post-Mahler world). Saint-Saens’ compositional canon included plenty of orchestral music, including the graphically ghoulish symphonic tone poem “Danse Macabre”; the epochal Organ Symphony (#3); the opera “Samson And Delilah”; and numerous instrumental concertos, including five for the piano. But he also had composed concertos for members of the string section; and this included the cello. His Cello Concerto No. 1 was composed in 1872, when he was thirty-seven years old, for the Belgian cellist Augstine Tolbecque, who was one of many distinguishes members of France’s most important musical society, the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire. The work’s premiere on January 19, 1873 at the conservatory in Paris with Tolbecque as soloist, as a huge success for both the soloist, and for Saint-Saens himself, who found his stock among the French music scene of the time rapidly rising as a result. Although occasionally overshadowed by later cello concertos by Elgar and Dvorak, the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No. 1, which is scored for a surprisingly Classical-era-sized orchestra, remains a huge part of many a cellist’s repertoire.
Cello: LYNN HARRELL
Cleveland Orchestra/SIR NEVILLE MARRINER (London)
Included:
Schumann: CELLO CONCERTO IN A MINOR, OP. 129
Saint-Saens: CELLO CONCERTO NO. 1 IN A MINOR, OP. 33
The hugely influential Hector Berlioz’s works of the first third of the 19th century led to an explosion of great composers of his native France. Georges Bizet, Charles Gounod, and Eduoard Lalo were among these titans of 19th century French music. Also among those was Camille Saint-Saens, whose life spanned from 1835 (while Berlioz was having his biggest notoriety) to 1921 (in the post-Mahler world). Saint-Saens’ compositional canon included plenty of orchestral music, including the graphically ghoulish symphonic tone poem “Danse Macabre”; the epochal Organ Symphony (#3); the opera “Samson And Delilah”; and numerous instrumental concertos, including five for the piano. But he also had composed concertos for members of the string section; and this included the cello. His Cello Concerto No. 1 was composed in 1872, when he was thirty-seven years old, for the Belgian cellist Augstine Tolbecque, who was one of many distinguishes members of France’s most important musical society, the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire. The work’s premiere on January 19, 1873 at the conservatory in Paris with Tolbecque as soloist, as a huge success for both the soloist, and for Saint-Saens himself, who found his stock among the French music scene of the time rapidly rising as a result. Although occasionally overshadowed by later cello concertos by Elgar and Dvorak, the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No. 1, which is scored for a surprisingly Classical-era-sized orchestra, remains a huge part of many a cellist’s repertoire.
Cello: LYNN HARRELL
Cleveland Orchestra/SIR NEVILLE MARRINER (London)
Included:
Schumann: CELLO CONCERTO IN A MINOR, OP. 129