Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following t ...
wrote his first Cello Concerto in
A major
A major (or the key of A) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only k ...
, B. 10 in 1865.
Background
Unlike his famous
B minor Cello Concerto, Op. 104, Dvořák's A major Concerto is traditionally overlooked, so much so that the later work is only rarely called "No. 2." There are two reasons for this fate for the three-movement earlier piece: Dvořák left it in piano-score form, un-orchestrated; and it sprawls to some 55 minutes, with outer movements about 25 and 21 minutes long, respectively.
Written for cellist Ludevít Peer, it was rediscovered by composer
Günter Raphael years after Dvořák's death. Raphael orchestrated and heavily edited it in the late 1920s, making it more his own than Dvořák's.
[John Clapham, 1979, ''Dvořák'', Norton, writes that Raphael's "edition" is "so unlike Dvořák's original, that it must be regarded as a travesty of Dvořák's intentions."] The 1970s brought a second editor, the Dvořák expert and curator
Jarmil Burghauser, who, along with cellist
Miloš Sádlo, prepared a more lightly rethought account published two ways: in an orchestration by Burghauser; and in the original piano-score form with cuts corresponding to the new orchestrated version. Burghauser took the liberty of shortening both outer movements. One can sample all three editions, since there are Supraphon recordings available (original and Burghauser) as well as
Steven Isserlis's frequent touring with the Raphael version, released on
Hyperion Records.
Recordings
* CPO
*
Ramon Jaffé Cello. Rhine Philharmonic State Orchestra. Jarmil Burghauser version.
*
Supraphon Label
**
Jiří Bárta
Jiří Bárta (19 June 1935 – 4 January 2012) was a Czech pianist and composer.
Biography
Jiří Bárta was born in Šumice, Uherské Hradiště District. In his youth, he studied piano with organist and composer Emil Hába (1900–1982). He ...
, Cello. Original form, for Cello and Piano.
**
Miloš Sádlo, Cello. An orchestrated version by Jarmil Burghauser.
* Koch Classics
**
Werner Thomas-Mifune, Cello. Burghauser version.
* Hyperion
**
Steven Isserlis, Cello.
Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by
Daniel Harding. Raphael version.
In 2010, the Czech cellist Tomas Jamnik recorded a new edition of the A major concerto with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra on the Supraphon label. The performers here shorten the concerto to 35 minutes, sometimes following Burghauser, but sometimes, following extensive research by themselves, finding their own solutions to some of the problems caused by only having the piano score, rather than a full orchestral version. On completion of the piano score, Dvořák would never go back to his "Concerto for 'Cello with piano accompaniment".
References
External links
Cello concerto in A major on a comprehensive Dvorak site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cello Concerto in A major (Dvorak)
Compositions by Antonín Dvořák
Dvorak Cello Concerto No.1, B.10
1865 compositions
Compositions in A major