HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Cello Concerto in D major is
Arthur Sullivan Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', '' The Pirates of Penzance ...
's only concerto and was one of his earliest large-scale works. It was written for the Italian cellist
Alfredo Piatti Carlo Alfredo Piatti (8 January 182218 July 1901) was an Italian cellist, teacher and composer. Biography Piatti was born at via Borgo Canale, in Bergamo and died in Mozzo, 4 miles from Bergamo. The son of a violinist, Antonio Piatti, he ori ...
and premiered on 24 November 1866 at the Crystal Palace, London, with
August Manns Sir August Friedrich Manns (12 March 1825 – 1 March 1907) was a German-born British conductor who made his career in England. After serving as a military bandmaster in Germany, he moved to England and soon became director of music at London' ...
conducting. After this, it was performed only a few times. The score was not published, and the manuscript was destroyed in a fire in the 1960s, but the full score was reconstructed by the conductors Sir Charles Mackerras and David Mackie in the 1980s. Their version was premiered and published in 1986. The work is rarely heard in the concert hall, but it has been recorded by
EMI Classics EMI Classics was a record label founded by Thorn EMI in 1990 to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogues for internationally distributed European classical music, classical music releases. After Thorn EMI demerged ...
and others. There are three movements: Allegro moderato; Andante espressivo; and Finale: molto vivace.


History

Sullivan embarked on his composing career in the 1860s with a series of ambitious works, interspersed with hymns, parlour songs and other light pieces. At the concert at which the 23-year-old Sullivan's '' ''Irish'' Symphony'' was first performed in April 1866, the Italian cellist
Alfredo Piatti Carlo Alfredo Piatti (8 January 182218 July 1901) was an Italian cellist, teacher and composer. Biography Piatti was born at via Borgo Canale, in Bergamo and died in Mozzo, 4 miles from Bergamo. The son of a violinist, Antonio Piatti, he ori ...
played the
Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
Cello Concerto. Piatti's playing prompted Sullivan to compose a new concerto for him. The concerto was first performed on 24 November 1866 at the Crystal Palace, London, with
August Manns Sir August Friedrich Manns (12 March 1825 – 1 March 1907) was a German-born British conductor who made his career in England. After serving as a military bandmaster in Germany, he moved to England and soon became director of music at London' ...
conducting. Reviewing the first performance, ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...
'' called the work not a concerto, but a concertino, and although the paper looked forward to further performances, it added, "meanwhile we warn Mr. Sullivan that the present hopes of musical England rest in him.""Crystal Palace Concerts", ''The Times'', 10 December 1866, p. 9 There were few cello concertos in the repertoire in the 1860s. Those by Dvořák (1895), Saint-Saëns (1872 and 1902),
Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
(1919) and
Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...
(1959 and 1966) were yet to come; concertos from earlier centuries such as those of
Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespre ...
and
Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have le ...
had fallen into neglect. Even the Schumann, composed sixteen years before Sullivan's, was far from a regular repertoire piece at the time. Nonetheless, there were only two more complete performances of Sullivan's concerto during his lifetime.Higgins, p. 3 Piatti played the work in Edinburgh on 17 December 1866, and there was an amateur performance in London in February 1887.Jacobs, p. 42 The first two movements were played at a
Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...
promenade concert in October 1873, conducted by the composer, with Walter Pettit as soloist. Sullivan's biographer
Arthur Jacobs Arthur David Jacobs (14 June 1922 – 13 December 1996) was an English musicologist, music critic, teacher, librettist and translator. Among his many books, two of the best known are his ''Penguin Dictionary of Music'', which was reprinted in sev ...
considers it remarkable that the work fell into neglect, surmising that Sullivan or Piatti, or both, decided that it was unsatisfactory, possibly because of the brevity of the first movement.Jacobs, Arthur. Programme notes for premiere of reconstructed version, London Symphony Orchestra, April 1986 In the early 20th century there was a single performance by the soloist May Mukle with the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra conducted by Dan Godfrey; after that the work was not heard again until the final performance of the original score, given by William Pleeth and the Goldsbrough Orchestra conducted by
Charles Mackerras Mackerras in 2005 Sir Alan Charles MacLaurin Mackerras (; 1925 2010) was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was long associated with the Engl ...
in a concert for the
BBC Third Programme The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and quickly became one of the leading cultural and intellectual f ...
, broadcast live on 7 July 1953.Mackie, p. 170 The concerto was not published, and in May 1964 the manuscript score and orchestral parts were destroyed in a fire at the publishers, Chappell & Co. A copy of the solo part, with indications of some orchestral cues survived, as part of the Pierpont Morgan Collection. Working from this, from his own memory and from a second cued soloist's copy Mackerras made a reconstruction of the concerto in the 1980s, in close collaboration with the conductor and Sullivan specialist David Mackie. Mackerras filled in what he could not remember of the orchestral parts, "based on his knowledge of Sullivan, and also of Mendelssohn and Schubert (both of whom Sullivan often imitated in his early works)." The reconstructed work was given at a
London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...
concert at the
Barbican A barbican (from fro, barbacane) is a fortified outpost or fortified gateway, such as at an outer defense perimeter of a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Europe In the Middle ...
, London, on 20 April 1986.
Julian Lloyd Webber Julian Lloyd Webber (born 14 April 1951) is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme. Early years and education Julian ...
was the soloist, and Mackerras conducted. The same performers recorded the work for
EMI Classics EMI Classics was a record label founded by Thorn EMI in 1990 to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogues for internationally distributed European classical music, classical music releases. After Thorn EMI demerged ...
immediately afterwards.Higgins, back cover The work was recorded again in 1999 by
Martin Ostertag Martin Ostertag (born in 1943) is a German classical cellist and music educator. Life Born in Lörrach, Ostertag studied cello with Leo Koscielny at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe and with André Navarra in Paris. In 1967 he was a prizewi ...
with the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Klaus Arp, and in 2000 by Paul Watkins with the
BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. T ...
and Mackerras. The reconstructed score was published by Josef Weinberger, London, in 1986. A piano reduction by Mackie was published at the same time.


Musical analysis

The proportions of the concerto are unusual: the first movement – customarily the longest and most symphonically structured movement of a concerto – plays for only three and a half minutes. The other two movements run about seven minutes each. ;'' Allegro moderato'' Using the notes of the tonic triad (D, F and A), the ''Allegro'' opens with a burst of energy, but after 75 bars it "simply fades out just when one is expecting the second subject". Andrew Lamb. Review, ''The Gramophone'', February 1987, p. 1122 It segues into the next movement, by way of a brief cadenza. ;'' Andante espressivo'' The slow movement, a sweetly songful ''andante'', was praised at the time of the première, and it was suggested that it should be transcribed for church organ. The gentle mood makes way, halfway through the movement, for a few assertive strophic bars before the mild ''andante'' theme returns. The reviewer for ''
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...
'' wrote, after the first performance, that the main theme of the movement was "as purely beautiful a melody as anything written for the instrument". ;''Finale: molto vivace'' The finale returns to the energetic vein of the opening of the concerto, in what the conductor Tom Higgins calls "an extraordinary burst of drive and melodic power".Higgins, p. 5 Once the brisk mood is established Sullivan brings back the exuberant opening theme of the concerto, before a gentler interlude followed by some energetic but not conspicuously tuneful passagework leading to a lively variant of the opening bars of the finale and, after some further bars of passagework, a conventional closing flourish. The orchestration and the string writing for the soloist show Sullivan's habitual grasp of the capabilities of all instruments, but commentators have not found the actual themes memorable. Goodwin, Noël. "LSO/Mackerras Barbican", ''The Times'', 22 April 1986, p. 15; and Cole, Hugo. "Sullivan Cello Concerto", ''The Guardian'', 21 April 1986, p. 15 ''The Gramophone'' review of the 1986 recording concludes: "Never does the work build up to any really satisfying effect, however much the themes may initially promise".


Notes, references and sources


Notes


References


Sources

* * *


External links


solo Cello part
at IMSLP
Clip of Mackerras & Lloyd Webber performing the concerto
{{Authority control 1866 compositions Cello Concerto
Sullivan Sullivan may refer to: People Characters * Chloe Sullivan, from the television series ''Smallville'' * Colin Sullivan, a character in the film ''The Departed'', played by Matt Damon * Harry Sullivan (''Doctor Who''), from the British science f ...
Compositions in D major