about Music – the Art of Listening. Programme 103 More Romantic Cello Music
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Our opening number in this programme of more Romantic cello music is by Astor Piazzolla - Las 4 Estaciones Porteñas (The four seasons of Buenos Aires)
We will listen to No. 3, Primavera Porteña – Spring.
We are going to continue with the second concerto for piano by Brahms in which the cello plays a very prominent role in the third movement. Listen to its warm and sonorous tone as it contrasts to and supports the piano.
After that we come to two shorter pieces for cello and piano, both quite well known, and both of which are also arranged for other instruments and instrumental combinations.
In the first, Jules Massenet’s Méditation from Thais, you will hear once again how the cello sings with its warm tone.
In the second, Gabriel Fauré’s – Élégie, the cello is very suited to this dramatic and mournfully reflective composition. An Elegy is a song of Mourning as one contemplates the nature of mortality.
We end our programme with a composition by Cesar Franck, his Sonata in A, which has also been arranged for various instruments. It is in four movements, and the last of the four is particularly interesting. It is an elegant and masterful example of cyclic form, where earlier thematic material from the preceding movements is woven into the finale. But what makes this movement particularly interesting is its extensive use of imitation and canon which is a compositional technique rooted in Baroque traditions, where one voice (instrument) states a theme and another follows in imitation. The movement begins with a graceful, lyrical theme played in canon between the cello and piano. The piano introduces the theme, and the cello quickly follows with the same theme, offset by a short time interval, creating a layered, imitative texture.
We will listen to No. 3, Primavera Porteña – Spring.
We are going to continue with the second concerto for piano by Brahms in which the cello plays a very prominent role in the third movement. Listen to its warm and sonorous tone as it contrasts to and supports the piano.
After that we come to two shorter pieces for cello and piano, both quite well known, and both of which are also arranged for other instruments and instrumental combinations.
In the first, Jules Massenet’s Méditation from Thais, you will hear once again how the cello sings with its warm tone.
In the second, Gabriel Fauré’s – Élégie, the cello is very suited to this dramatic and mournfully reflective composition. An Elegy is a song of Mourning as one contemplates the nature of mortality.
We end our programme with a composition by Cesar Franck, his Sonata in A, which has also been arranged for various instruments. It is in four movements, and the last of the four is particularly interesting. It is an elegant and masterful example of cyclic form, where earlier thematic material from the preceding movements is woven into the finale. But what makes this movement particularly interesting is its extensive use of imitation and canon which is a compositional technique rooted in Baroque traditions, where one voice (instrument) states a theme and another follows in imitation. The movement begins with a graceful, lyrical theme played in canon between the cello and piano. The piano introduces the theme, and the cello quickly follows with the same theme, offset by a short time interval, creating a layered, imitative texture.