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Legend has it that the first performance was an unmitigated disaster Instead of pitting instruments of similar pitch (horns, bassoons, etc) against the cello, Elgar leaves the middle ground to his soloist – further reinforcing the concerto’s lonely contours. In addition, Elgar’s role for the orchestra was substantially different from Dvorák’s. The fact that the new concerto – from the composer of the Pomp and Circumstance Marches – contained no hint of triumphalism confused still further. People look for renewal, and Elgar represented the past. Cataclysmic events produce drastic reactions. The First World War had changed everything. But Dvorák’s heroics were not for Elgar in 1919. “Announce the hero,” Casals would instruct his students at the cello’s first entry in Dvorák’s magnificent concerto. And I feel the composer has given us an intensely personal, lonely statement. But, once on the concert platform, I could only play it the way I felt. I experimented (in private!) with playing the concerto in many ways. If there was one thing that convinced me I had the right to record my own version of Elgar’s extraordinary creation (on which I was hugely helped by having Yehudi Menuhin as my conductor), it was the certainty that my interpretation was markedly different from du Pre’s. Du Pre’s has become the benchmark by which all others are compared – but a downside of the iconic status accorded to Jackie’s very individual performance is that so many young cellists seem to feel obliged to copy it. I loved Tortelier’s gentle rendition with its French accent – indeed his recording confirms my theory that the greater a piece of music, the greater number of interpretations it can take – whilst still managing to survive!Ĭertainly, Tortelier’s account could not be more different from Jacqueline du Pré’s legendary recording. I have always been grateful to my mysterious mentor, as my present turned out to be one of the finest cello recordings of the era – the Elgar, played by Paul Tortelier with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Malcolm Sargent. My grandmother didn’t know much about classical music and I later discovered that she had been guided by the “nice old gentleman” who ran the specialist record shop on the corner. So she bought me a cello record for Christmas. I was nine years old and my grandmother had evidently decided that it was time I heard the instrument I kept sawing away on played properly. This article was written for BBC Music Magazine: An Appreciation of Elgar’s Cello Concerto on the Centenary of its First Performance:ĭame Fortune was smiling kindly on me when I first encountered Elgar’s Cello Concerto.
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