Dvorak/ Dohnanyi: Cello Concerto/ Konzertstuck

Description

This month, on the Chandos Classics label, we are re-releasing our recording of Dvorak's Cello Concerto in B minor and the Konzertstuck for Cello and Orchestra by Dohnanyi (CHAN 8662), performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Charles Mackerras, with Raphael Wallfisch the featured soloist.The Cello Concerto in B minor by Dvorak has become one of his most popular works, and perhaps the most popular concerto ever written for the instrument. He was asked to write this piece by a friend of Wagner, the cellist Hanus Wihan. Initially reluctant, Dvorak stated that the cello was indeed a fine orchestral instrument but totally insufficient for a solo concerto. Fortunately, he changed his mind upon hearing Victor Herbert's Second Cello Concerto performed in concert, in 1894. The resulting Cello Concerto is richly inventive, full of deep feeling, and perfectly fitted to the cello. Dvorak combined his experience as an orchestral player with an understanding of the cello's distinct textural qualities to produce a grand and emotionally intense work, one of his finest achievements. Ernst von Dohnanyi was highly acclaimed as a pianist-composer, and widely regarded during his lifetime as a successor to Liszt. As a composer, however, he had more in common with Brahms than with Liszt, despite his Hungarian heritage, and his creative output was not limited to the piano. His Konzertstuck in D major is in fact a full-scale cello concerto, in three interconnected parts. A lyrical rhapsody, it begins quietly, the cello emerging out of the orchestra and seeming to sing, until parting with a sense of regret at the end.