Romantic Music for
Cello and Orchestra
Virtuoso cello music developed in the earlier years of the nineteenth
century, coinciding with a change in musical fashions. The expressive range of
the instrument, coupled with an extension of technique parallel to the
contemporary development of violin technique, led to an exploration of the
possibilities of the instrument in music of varying quality, some of which now
survives principally in the practice studio. At the same time the needs of the
travelling virtuoso were increasingly met by transcriptions. The present
collection represents repertoire by leading Russian and Lithuanian composers of
the later nineteenth century and the twentieth.
Rimsky-Korsakov's dramatic Flight of the Bumble-Bee has taxed the
dexterity of many an instrumentalist in arrangement after arrangement. The bee
in question, a young prince in disguise and set on revenge against his wicked
aunts, makes his flight in the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan. It was
late in his career that Rimsky-Korsakov wrote his Serenade, Opus 37, for
cello and orchestra, an arrangement of a work for cello and piano written ten
years earlier. The new arrangement was dedicated to the composer's son, Andrey.
The Lithuanian composer, pianist and conductor Balys Dvarionas was the
son of an instrument maker and member of a family that earned much distinction
in music. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Abendroth and Karg-Elert
and in Berlin with Egon Petri. He established an international career as a
pianist, before turning to conducting, notably as founder of the Vilnius
Symphony Orchestra. His By the Lake, characteristic of a style that had
its roots in the folk-music of his country, makes full use of the range and
lyrical power of the cello. The Introduction and Rondino for cello and
orchestra draws on material of similar character. The Introduction allows
the cello an expressive melodic line, followed by a lively dance-like principal
melody for the little rondo, with its attractively contrasting episodes.
Tchaikovsky's most significant addition to solo cello repertoire lies in
his Rococo Variations and, to a lesser extent, his Pezzo Capriccioso.
The Mélodie, here transcribed for cello and orchestra, is the third
of the pieces for violin and piano published as Souvenirs d'un lieu cher. The
months after the early break-down of his disastrous marriage had taken
Tchaikovsky abroad, where he was, nevertheless, able to write his Violin
Concerto. Returning to Russia, he took advantage of the hospitality offered
by his new and unseen patron, Nadezhda von Meck, staying, in her absence, at
her Ukraine estate at Brailov, and leaving the set of pieces of which the
charming Mélodie is the third, for his benefactress as a token of
gratitude. It was Tchaikovsky's friendship in Paris with the young Russian
cellist Anatoly Brandukov that brought about the Pezzo Capriccioso and
Brandukov was also able to augment his repertoire with two transcriptions that
Tchaikovsky made in 1886-7 and 1888. The first of these was a version of an earlier
piano piece, the fourth of a set written in 1873, the Nocturne, Opus 19,
No. 4. Still more familiar in this and other arrangements is the Andante
cantabile, a transcription by the composer of the slow movement of his String
Quartet No. 1 in D major, Opus 11, of 1871.
Anton Rubinstein, one of the greatest pianists of his generation, was
given the task, under royal patronage, of establishing the first conservatory
of music in Russia, in St Petersburg, and soon followed by a parallel
establishment in Moscow under the direction of his brother Nikolay. It was in
St Petersburg that Tchaikovsky had his professional musical training and in
Moscow that he found his first employment as a musician. For the Russian
nationalist composers of the second half of the nineteenth century Rubinstein
became associated, as a composer, with suggestions of kitsch, an unfair
judgement. It is, however, for his sentimental Mélodie that he is still
popularly remembered.
The Russian cellist Karl Davïdov studied composition with Moritz
Hauptmann in Leipzig and was recruited by Mendelssohn's friend and associate,
the violinist Ferdinand David, as a soloist and then as principal cellist in
the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. From 1862 he made his career once more in
Russia, serving as professor of the cello in St Petersburg at the conservatory
of which he later became director. His preferred ambitions as a composer were
to some extent met by the various concertos and other works he wrote for his
own instrument. Something of his own technical command of the cello is clear
from the effective Ballade, Opus 25, of 1875. The earlier At the
Fountain, Opus 20, No. 2, is a further exercise in rapid virtuosity.
A composition pupil of Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatory, Sergey
Ivanovich Taneyev was the soloist in the first Russian performance of his
teacher's First Piano Concerto and after Tchaikovsky's resignation from
the Conservatory took over some of his classes. As a composer he belongs to the
generation that was able to reconcile, to some extent, the aspirations of the
nationalists with a fully professional command of the technical resources of
composition. His Canzona of 1883, originally intended for clarinet and
strings and then arranged by the composer for cello and piano, reflects something
of the influence of Tchaikovsky in its melodic expressiveness.
1905 had brought political disturbances in Russia, but it was the events
of 1917 that shattered the older world, as the Bolsheviks came to power.
Shostakovich studied in St Petersburg during a period of considerable change,
completing his courses at the Conservatory in 1926. He was to suffer overt
official condemnation in 1936 and again in 1948. The romantic Adagio is
drawn from Ballet Suite No. 2 of 1951, arranged by Atovmyan and derived
from work originally undertaken with a certain reluctance. The short movement
has enjoyed considerable popularity in this version.
As its title proclaims, a wordless song, Rachmaninov's Vocalise,
Opus 34, No. 14, has a powerful attraction all its own, in whatever arrangement
it may appear. Written in 1912 and revised three years later, it is in singular
contrast to the events taking place at the time of its revision. Two years
later, after the Russian withdrawal from war with Germany and the final Bolshevik
accession to power, Rachmaninov was to leave Russia for ever, preferring an
exile that forced a change of emphasis in his career, from composition to
performance.
Keith Anderson