Advantages: Highly burnished, engaging, musically intelligent and emotionally mature playing; beautiful tone is never saccharine. Disadvantages: Nil.
It would be one of the most daunting works to take on for any musician, given the history of its recording, yet British cellist Natalie Clein decided to do it. It took her some ten years to get to the point where she felt ready to tackle it again for posterity, and this CD gives her good reason to be proud.
ELGAR'S CELLOCONCERTO AND DU PRÉ
So what's so intimidating about Edward Elgar's CelloConcerto? Besides its call in the performer for technical virtuosity and a mature musical understanding of the piece, the concerto has also been inextricably linked with Jacqueline du Pré (1945 - 1987), cellist extraordinaire, who was tragically struck down at the prime of life by multiple sclerosis. Her landmark 1965 recording, made when she was just twenty (with John Barbirolli conducting the London Symphony Orchestra), is still hallowed by ...
Advantages: It is simply one of the finest pieces of music ever written Disadvantages: How dare you ask of any disadvantges!?!
Harrison as soloist, but it was never really taken on, and was often considered as being "ugly" and a "failure." It took nearly 50 years for the Concerto to re-emerge to the public consciousness when a young cellist by the name of Jaqueline duPré took up the work and made it a world wide sensation. After DuPré's classic performances of the work in 1965 and 1970, the Concerto finally ascended to its rightful place of the most magnificent Concerto for Cello and Orchestra ever composed, right beside Dvorak's respective masterpiece.
MOVEMENT BY MOVEMENT ANALYSIS
(Listened version: 1965 recording by Jacqueline DuPré with John Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra)
I Movement: Adagio - Moderato
Four jagged, outraged notes from the cello alone open the concerto as if to ask "What is this?" The cello continues in similar manner ...
Advantages: The Best Recording Ever Disadvantages: None
Elgar’s CelloConcerto in E Minor, Op. 85
Jacqueline du Pre and the LSO, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
Madam, you have an instrument between your legs capable of giving pleasure to thousands, and all you can do is sit there and scratch it!
So said the eminently witty conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, in reference to a lady ‘cellist. He certainly wasn’t, however, referring to the unmatchable Jacqueline du Pre, who, in my humble opinion, was the most gifted cellist ever and whose short, tragic life is somehow augured by this melancholic recording. It’s an EMI classic, which means that it’s an old, old recording, but so good that it shouldn’t be lost at the bottom of a pile of old vinyls at a jumble sale, but digitally re-mastered and made available for future generations on CD. The original ...
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