PERFORMERS:
Soloists:
Lynn Harrell (cello)
Kristóf Baráti (violin)
The Mariinsky Orchestra
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
PROGRAMME:
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Violin Concerto in D Major
Camille Saint-Saëns
Introduction et rondo capriccioso, Op. 28
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Andante cantabile
Antonín Dvořák
Concerto for cello and orchestra in B Minor, op. 104
Antonín Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B Minor is one of the greatest masterpieces in the romantic repertoire. The Concerto was written during the third and final year that the composer spent in New York at the National Conservatory and it was completed on 9 February 1895. It was first performed on 19 March 1896 in London by Leo Stern, though it had initially been intended for Czech cellist Hanuš Wihan to perform it.
Dvořák began writing it after the immense success of the ultra-romantic Second Cello Concerto in B Minor by Victor Herbert, the Irish cellist, composer and conductor and a colleague at the Conservatory. The latter had recently arrived in the USA where he became leader of the cellos in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, a member of the New York String Quartet and the creator of an orchestra of his own that performed light music as well as composing popular operettas. But he was also an acclaimed composer of serious music.
Dvořák’s work on the Concerto did not flow easily. He had left for America for the first time alone, without his family, and that increased his nostalgia. Unlike his earlier American works, (the New World symphony or the Fourteenth Quartet), the Cello Concerto is free of Americanisms. In the middle of the second section one can hear the theme of Dvořák’s song Leave Me Alone (Op. 82 No 1). The story of its composition is connected with the composer’s hearing of the sickness and death of his wife’s sister, with whom he had once been in love. In the finale the theme returns – in the final duet of the cello and the solo violin.
Anna Bulycheva
Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote his only Violin Concerto in 1878 when he was already an acclaimed composer having written his First Piano Concerto, four symphonies and operas (including Eugene Onegin). The Violin Concerto somewhat repeated the destiny of the First Piano Concerto as it was not immediately judged as it deserved to be. Today it is difficult to imagine that a work of such power, expressiveness and beauty did not immediately find an appreciative audience or performer. Initially Tchaikovsky had decided to write the Concerto for his friend and pupil Iosif Kotek, and then because of subsequent disagreements he offered it to the renowned violinist and teacher Leopold Auer. On seeing, however, that the latter “shelved” his work he dedicated the piece to Adolph Brodsky who was the first performer of the Concerto in Russia and abroad and who met with strong resistance from other musicians and sharply negative critical comments afterwards.
For one and a half centuries the main difficulty for the performer has been the extremely virtuoso nature of the Concerto. Today the main problem lies rather in the interpretation because offering a new treatment of such a famous and frequently performed work is a task that is definitely not for the fainthearted.
Svetlana Nikitina
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