Elgar Cello Concerto

Elgar's Cello Concerto was composed in the shadow of World War 1.
It was a piece that marked a profound shift in Elgar's outlook on
life and music, and was his last major work before a long silence
caused by the death of his wife Alice. It is a piece of
remarkable passion for a composer like Elgar, and never fails to
move the audience with its combination of grief, melancholy,
nostalgia, rage, but also tenderness. Elgar as a composer had
been passed by with the invention of atonality and with composers
like Stravinsky and Schoenberg pushing the boundaries of where
music could go. Elgar stubbornly stayed true to his Romantic
impulses, but the concerto also displays some of the inescapable
influence of those composers. It is one of the most powerful
pieces of the 20th century, but one of the reasons we know the
piece so well is an unforgettable recording made in 1965 by
Jacqueline Du Pre. It is very unusual for a piece to be so
associated with a single performer, but Du Pre truly made the
Elgar a standard concerto for the cello and it is now a piece
that every cellist makes a part of their repertoire. We'll talk
about all this and more during the show today - join us!