Elgar Cello Concerto
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
Joshua Weilerstein
4.9 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 August 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Sticky Notes, the Classical Music Podcast. |
| 0:10.6 | My name is Joshua Weilstein, I'm a conductor, and I'm the Music Director of the Phoenix |
| 0:14.1 | Orchestra of Boston, and the Chief Conductor Designate of the All Borg Symphony. |
| 0:18.6 | This podcast is for anyone who loves classical music, works in the field, or is just getting |
| 0:22.9 | ready to dive in to this amazing world of incredible music. |
| 0:26.4 | Before we get started, I want to thank my new Patreon sponsors, Paul H. and Linda |
| 0:30.5 | L. Ben, Rosita, Matthew, Judy, Eric, Venkat, Mira, Latissia, John, Column, Nazinga, |
| 0:39.0 | Catrin, Carol, Simon, Giayee, and all of my other Patreon sponsors for making season |
| 0:45.7 | 9 possible. |
| 0:46.7 | If you'd like to support the show, please head over to patreon.com slash Sticky Notes |
| 0:51.0 | Podcast. |
| 0:52.0 | And if you are a fan of the show, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on |
| 0:55.6 | Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:57.1 | It is greatly appreciated. |
| 1:00.9 | Two things I wanted to mention this week before we get started with the show. |
| 1:04.0 | This is an older episode on Elgar's cello concerto that I'm going to be sharing with you |
| 1:07.7 | this week, because I am going to be in Chicago next week, conducting the Chicago Symphony |
| 1:13.8 | in my debut with the orchestra, with Elgar's cello concerto with my sister, Elisa Weilstein. |
| 1:18.8 | Also, I'll be conducting the Shostakovich's fifth symphony, and William Grant stills |
| 1:22.7 | poem for orchestra. |
| 1:24.3 | I wanted to mention this as an older episode, because I actually noticed that the recording |
| 1:29.3 | that I made of the show a couple of years ago is quite a bit slower in terms of my speaking |
... |
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