The Cello. Music as expressive as the Human Voice.

The Music

The Words

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the ‘Classical For Everyone’ Podcast… five hundred years of incredible music. My name is Peter Cudlipp and back in 2023 I started a radio show called ‘Classical For Everyone’ and now, with this podcast… I’m after a bigger audience. If you enjoy any music at all then I’m convinced you can enjoy classical music. All you need are ears. No expertise is necessary. If you’ve ever been even slightly curious about classical music then this is the podcast for you.

Because there’s a lot of music out there each one hour episode has something of a theme. And for today it is… music for the cello… I have pieces for you by Josef Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Edward Elgar, Sergei Prokofiev, Samuel Barber, Dmitri Shostakovich;  and, to finish, something for solo cello by Johann Sebastian Bach. I hope by the end of this hour you’ll have a sense of why the cello has been and remains an incredibly popular solo instrument for audiences and composers. Amongst all the instruments in the modern string family… violins, violas, cellos and double basses… it is the cello that most closely approximates the range of the human voice… from the lowest bass to the highest soprano and that may be one reason why it seems especially popular. Also, to my mind, as a physical object , cellos are just very beautiful things. If you have been lucky enough to see one up close… then I think you’ll know what I mean.

Today, one of the most performed and recorded works for cello and orchestra is Josef Haydn’s cello concerto from about 1765... and you could be forgiven for thinking it has always been part of the repertoire. But that is not the case. In fact, the concerto disappeared entirely almost as soon as it was first performed. Haydn noted the themes in his sort of diary of compositions and that was that. For close to 200 years it was assumed lost and then in 1961 a score was discovered in the Prague National Museum. Here is Alisa Weilerstein playing the cello and leading the Trondheim Soloists in the first section of Josef Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1. The cello, I guess like all instruments, is capable of many moods and here is nine minutes of sunny optimism.

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That was Alisa Weilerstein playing the cello and leading the Trondheim Soloists in the first section of Josef Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1. Next up part of a sonata for cello and piano by Ludwig Van Beethoven. In this instance the term sonata means a multi section work written to showcase the expressiveness and capabilities of one or a small group of instruments… in this instance a cello and a piano. Beethoven wrote five of them and this is the third from 1808. It has become one of his most popular sonatas and one of the reasons given is that the cello and the piano have almost equally strong roles to play. Which has made it popular with audiences but perhaps more importantly… with musicians. Ok, here is the conclusion of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s third sonata for cello and piano performed here by Mischa Maisky and Martha Argerich. It is about 9 minutes long and it starts with a slow singing introduction and then a bright and animated conversation between the two instruments.

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That was the conclusion of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s third sonata for cello and piano performed by Mischa Maisky and Martha Argerich. I hope you are enjoying this ‘all cello’ episode of the ‘Classical For Everyone’ podcast.

The English composer Edward Elgar had written his concerto for cello and orchestra in 1919 when he was 62. Elgar’s greatest successes had preceded the First World War and it is hard not to think of that cataclysm as drawing something of a line between what was considered ‘old’ and tied to a world that had failed… and what would come to be seen as ‘new’.

That might have been why the work didn’t find the success the composer hoped for. It didn’t help that the first performance went very badly… through no fault of Elgar’s writing… The critic of The Observer, Ernest Newman, wrote, "There have been rumours about during the week of inadequate rehearsal. Whatever the explanation, the sad fact remains that never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself. ... 

So, that’s kind of where the life of Elgar’s cello concerto would perhaps have ended. It did get a couple of very early recordings but it really never caught on. But playing in the orchestra at that disappointing first performance was a nineteen year old by the name of John Barbirolli who would over the subsequent decades not only carry a torch for Elgar’s music but become a very fine conductor.  And at a music competition in 1955 where he was one of the judges he encountered very nervous ten year old cellist. And that began a connection that a decade later would see them together in London’s Kingsway Hall along with the London Symphony Orchestra recording Edward Elgar’s Concerto for Cello & Orchestra. That cellist’s name was Jacqueline Du Pré and that recording relaunched the fortunes of the concerto. And I am going to play you the opening section. It’s about 8 minutes long and if the first two works have been about the sunnier side of the cello’s voice… this is about passion, drama and longing. Here is Sir John Barbirolli conducting the cellist Jacqueline Du Pré and the London Symphony Orchestra with the first section of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto.

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That was Sir John Barbirolli conducting the cellist Jacqueline Du Pré and the London Symphony Orchestra with the first section of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto. In setting up the Elgar I sort of hinted at the impact world events can have on the fortunes of composers and their work. Other than Nazi Germany perhaps nowhere in the 20^th century was this a more significant factor than in the Soviet Union. In 1949 Sergei Prokofiev was uncertain if any of his music was ever going to be performed again. Most of his music had been banned the year before. But he kept composing and when he encountered the young cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, he decided to write a sonata for cello and piano for him. Ultimately it was performed but only after it passed two ‘auditions’ one for the bureaucrats of the Composers Union and one for the functionaries of the Radio Committee. I’m going to play you the opening 9 minute section from a slightly rare but very fine recording. This is the cellist Catherine Hewgill, who studied with Rostropovich, and the pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy… quite well known for his facility with the works of the Russian/Soviet greats. Here is the opening of Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata for Cello and Piano.

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That was Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata for Cello and Piano. The cellist was Catherine Hewgill,  and the pianist, Vladimir Ashkenazy. If that work showcased the deeper and darker register of the cello then this next piece places more emphasis on the middle and upper register. The cello sings with a freer and at times more ethereal tone. The work is by the American composer Samuel Barber who was serving with the US Army Air Corps in 1945 when he received a commission to write this cello concerto for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I played Barber’s ‘Adagio For Strings’ in the ‘Farewells’ episode of the podcast and I hope listening to the 7 minute slow middle section of his concerto for cello and orchestra might persuade you that he was much more than the one-hit wonder his is sometimes thought of. Here is the cellist Wendy Warner in this recording with the Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted  by Marin Alsop. The second section of Samuel Barber’s Cello Concerto.

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That was The second section of Samuel Barber’s Cello Concerto. The cellist was Wendy Warner in a recording with the Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted  by Marin Alsop. With this ‘all cello’ episode… every piece really deserves to be played in its entirety but sadly is not going to be… in the interests of jamming as many riches into the episode as I can. So here is another excerpt.  This is the wild energy, mocking wit, percussive roiling and virtuosic cello writing of the opening of Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1^st Cello Concerto from 1959. The performance I am going to play you is by the Australian Chamber Orchestra directed by Richard Tognetti accompanying the cello soloist Pieter Wispelwey. The First Concerto for Cello by Dmitri Shostakovich.      

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That was the Australian Chamber Orchestra directed by Richard Tognetti accompanying the cello soloist Pieter Wispelwey with the opening section of the First Concerto for Cello by Dmitri Shostakovich. And I couldn’t do an ‘all cello’ episode without this final bit.

In 1889 the Spanish cellist Pablo Casals, already a prodigy at the age of thirteen, was exploring  a junk shop in Barcelona and came across some sheet music for unaccompanied cello. Casals bought the sheet music, took it home and started practicing it. The music had been published in the 1830’s but it didn’t seem to find champions or an audience. Certainly when Casals started performing it publicly no one had probably heard it for close to a hundred years. So without a curious young kid meandering around the two dollar shops of Catalonia we would not have Johann Sebastian Bach’s six suites for solo cello from about 1720. And you would not be about to listen to the first part of the first suite. Two and a half minutes of… what’s the best way to describe this? He’s generalising… but here is what the performer you’re about to listen to, Yo-Yo Ma has to say…"When you play the cello, beautiful things happen. The instrument resonates with your body - you feel the vibrations through your chest. It's the closest thing to singing without using your voice. “

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That was Yo-Yo Ma playing the first part of Johann Sebastian Bach’s first suite for solo cello. My name is Peter Cudlipp and you have been listening to the ‘Classical for Everyone’ Podcast. If you would like to listen to past episodes or get details of the music I’ve played please head to the website classicalforeveryone.net. That web address again is classicalforeveryone.net. There you will also find some mini-episodes that address some of what I want to call the vexing questions for a listener new to Classical Music like… ‘Are conductors actually important?’; ‘Why does the word ‘sonata’ keep turning up?’ and ‘Why is some classical music so damn long?’.        

I hope you have enjoyed this episode of ‘Classical For Everyone’. If you want to make sure you don’t miss the shows as they are released then please Subscribe or Follow wherever you get your podcasts. That would also mean the search algorithms will smile more benignly on the show and it might reach a few more people. For that I would be very grateful. And if you want to get in touch then you can email… info@classicalforeveryone.net. Thanks for your time and I look forward to playing you some more incredible music on the next ‘Classical For Everyone’.

This podcast is made with Audacity Software for editing, Wikipedia for Research, Claude for Artificial Intelligence and Apple, Sennheiser, Sony, Rode and Logitech for hardware… The music played is licensed through AMCOS / APRA. Classical For Everyone is a production of Mending Wall Studios and began life on Radio 2BBB in Bellingen NSW, Australia thanks to the late, great Mr Jeffrey Sanders. The producers do not receive any gifts or support of any kind from any organisation or individual mentioned in the show. But, never say never.

And if you have listened to the credits… here is a little bonus for you… the last part of J S Bach’s first suite for solo cello. Here again is Yo-Yo Ma. Thanks for listening.