Andante Cantabile - Romantic Music For Cello And Orchestra

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Cat No: 8555764

Release Date: 12 January 2001

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313576425

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: ANDANTE CANTABILE - ROMANTIC MUSIC FOR CELLO AND ORCHESTRA

Description
ANDANTE CANTABILERomantic Music for Cello and Orchestra The cello, or violoncello, to give it is fuller name, is the second lowest pitched instrument in the string family, below the violin and viola but above the double bass. In construction it is not dissimilar to the violin, but it is larger and is held between the knees when it is played. During the eighteenth century the cello increasingly came to supplant the viola da gamba in the orchestra and, having started with the function that the double bass now has in the orchestra, to provide the foundations, the bass line, it gradually developed into a solo instrument. As one would expect from his extensive output, Antonio Vivaldi was one of the first to compose a significant quantity of cello concertos, and since then a large number of composers have contributed to the genre. All the same, it is not hard to find major composers who never wrote any: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky are among them. This should not be taken, however, to imply that there is no good Romantic music for cello and orchestra. Nothing could be further from the truth, as this CD will demonstrate. Of the composers represented on this disc, the first, Carl Stamitz (1745-1801), is the least well-known. His father Johann, who was also a composer, played a major part in building up the Mannheim orchestra, the first great symphony orchestra. Carl himself was active at the Potsdam court and it is not inconceivable that his cello concertos were written in response to a commission from the cello-playing king, Frederick William II, who employed leading cellists at his court. He received three splendid concertos with delightful middle movements. Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) lived to an incredibly advanced age for his period: no less than 77 years. He produced, moreover, one masterpiece after another until nearly the end of his life. This was surely because he enjoyed his work so much and seems to have possessed a good sense of humour. He spent much of his professional life with the Princes Esterházy in Hungary. There he served as director of music, with an excellent orchestra at his disposal, with which he could try out all his ideas. He was successful in everything he did, from his 104 numbered symphonies to his seventy or more string quartets. His two surviving cello concertos (of a probable three) are no exception. The Concerto in D major from 1783 is the most famous, and its slow movement is a masterpiece, one of the Haydn’s innumerable strokes of genius. Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943) was not only a composer but also a fine conductor and a brilliant pianist (his peerless recordings of his own piano concertos are, incidentally, available in the Naxos Historical series). Vocalise is the name of one of the best-loved pieces for cello and orchestra, even though, originally, it was literally a vocalise, a song without words. Here the cello takes over the vocal line with a beauty
Tracklisting