Cello Concerto (Williams)

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The Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra is a cello concerto by the American composer John Williams . The world premiere took place in 1994.

Emergence

Williams began composing his cello concerto in late 1993.

Through a long-standing friendship with the American cellist Yo-Yo Ma , which was reflected in joint performances of the well-known cello concertos by Elgar , Dvorak and Haydn , Yo-Yo Ma was also intended as a soloist for the premiere of the concert, because of his (according to Williams) wide range of technical skills and expressiveness. The world premiere took place on July 7, 1994 in Tanglewood , the summer residence of the Boston Symphony Orchestra , under the direction of the composer at a gala concert at the opening of the Seiji Ozawa Hall .

In the following years the concert was revised several times. The duration of the concert is approximately 30 minutes.

description

occupation

Solo cello accompanied by strings and piccolo , 2 flutes , 2 oboes , English horn , 3 clarinets (instead of 3rd clarinet also bass clarinet ), 2 bassoons , contrabassoon , 4 horns , 3 trumpets , 4 trombones , timpani , percussion ( bass drum , glockenspiel , Marimba , mark tree, triangle , cymbals, tam-tam , tuned drums, vibraphone ), harp , celesta .

construction

The concert consists of four movements:

  1. Subject & Cadenza
  2. blues
  3. scherzo
  4. song

Subject & Cadenza

After the opening by the brass, the cello immediately takes the lead. As the theme develops, it turns into a cadence . The theme is "both thoughtful and virtuoso".

blues

For the composer, an inspiration for the second movement, which Williams titled Blues, was the jazz musicians Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn , to whom he said he felt spiritually connected. In the voices of the piano and percussion there are clusters that give the cello the opportunity to carry out its “foggy quasi-improvisations”.

scherzo

The Scherzo is characterized by speed, skill and instinct. Communication between the cello and the orchestra is interrupted from time to time by a series of fermatas . There is a short tutti passage in which it appears as if the orchestra could prevail, but the cello “surpasses it and has more stamina”.

song

About the fourth and last sentence, John Williams writes:

“As I thought about the finale of the concert, I always knew that one of the greatest abilities of yo-yo to“ connect ”personally and even privately with everyone in his audience is one of his greatest abilities. That is why in “Song”, the finale of the concert, I tried to create long lyrical lines that give the cello the opportunity to address the audience in a clear and direct way. "

Recordings

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Birge: Synopsis. Retrieved September 14, 2019 .
  2. ^ A b c d e John Williams: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra. Hollywood Bowl, accessed September 15, 2019 .