Continue the journey…
We suggest five further works to explore after Walton’s Cello Concerto
Piatigorsky wrote to Hindemith in 1940, ‘I believe your concerto is the greatest and most brilliant ever written so far.’ Its totally idiomatic cello writing and supreme control of motivic texture and structure is complemented by its clear orchestration and expressive neo-classicism. Walton used the theme of the Concerto’s second movement for his Variations on a Theme by Hindemith. (Johannes Moser (cello); Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern/ Christoph Poppen Hänssler HAEN93276)
In Rautavaara’s second cello concerto, Towards the Horizon (2009), continuous mystic cello melodies soar over piquantly expressive orchestral harmonies. Divinely scrunchy doublestops open the work and return at the close, as the cello’s last utterances climb way beyond the fingerboard, towards an ethereal close. (Truls Mørk (cello); Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/john Storgårds Ondine ODE 11782)
A perfumed shimmering impressionism graces the harmonies of Delius’s Cello Concerto (1921) – Delius likens these to ‘the after-glow of the sun sinking in the west… the stars emerging and fainting away as the moon rises’. It is an exquisite soundbath of colours with a melismatic cello melody magically sauntering above the orchestral timbres. (Paul Watkins (cello); BBC Symphony Orchestra/andrew Davis Chandos CHSA5094)
The haunting opening cello melody of Weinberg’s 1956 Concerto eloquently expresses the loss and trauma of the preceding decades due to the ravages of war. An element of folk music also colours the melodic invention – the composer’s Jewish background comes to the fore in a klezmer-like theme in the second movement. A robust rondo defines the Finale with an ascending scalic figure heralding a return to the mesmerisingly sad opening theme. (Nicolas Altstaedt (cello); Deutsches Symphonie-orchester Berlin/michal Nesterowicz Channel Classics CCS 38116)
Like Weinberg, Myaskovsky endured significant personal trauma which likewise colours his achingly poignant, melancholic melodies. The gloriously melodic Cello Concerto (1945) is his best-known work, the chromatic Romanticism of its opening compelling, with a lighter vigorous Allegro ensuing. A virtuosic cadenza leads to a return of the autumnal cello theme, which ends on a pianissimo high G. Nostalgia and regret infuse the whole. (Mischa Maisky (cello); Russian National Orchestra/mikhail Pletnev Deutsche Grammophon 486 1020)
A perfumed shimmering impressionism graces Delius’s Cello Concerto