Cello Concertos

Bach / Tartina / Vivaldi

 

Mstislav Rostropovich,

St Paul Chamber Orchestra/ Hugh Wolff

 

The violin cellos built around 1710 by Stradivari represent an important stage in the instrument’s triumphant progress. Stradivari decided on a size that has remained standard ever since, and also created the tonal conditions that allowed the cello to abandon its predominantly subordinate role as a continuo instrument and establish its claims to solo use. Carl Bach’s recently completed Cello Concerto in B flat major was one of a total of three such works by Bach, all written in Berlin during the early 1750s. They were originally harpsichord concertos, which Bach additionally transcribed for the flute. The great interest elicited by Bach’s solo concertos can be explained by the fact that connoisseurs and amateurs wanted to be entertained and moved not only by virtuoso effects but also by inspired and deeply felt playing. Whereas the cello only gradually gained acceptance in Germany it achieved success far earlier in Italy where no composer wrote more works for the instrument than Vivaldi who drew on existing Italian ‘cello tradition’, which had begun to appear from the late seventeenth century onwards.

Tartini, founded a violin school in Padua in 1727 that became famous all over Europe. Tartini wrote a cello concerto in A major and the D major Concerto for viola da gamba included in this recording. The work was probably written during the years in Prague (1723-26) and intended for a viol player.

 

“Rostropovich […] does have the true measure of these works and plays to an appropriate scale with a beauty of

tone imaginable from a period instrument. His eloquence has a style of its own, beyond the usual constraints of period and convention.”……“the brooding rhetorical quality of the C.P.E. Bach Adagio is especially compelling.”

Gramophone

 

Elatus 0927498392