Elgar's Cello Concerto & Dvořák 7

There will be a Starter prior to this concert. You can attend this in the Swing on the second floor to the left of cloakroom. 

Elfrida Andrée (1841-1929)
Andante quasi recitativo (1877) 

Before the masterpieces by Elgar and Dvořák, we will first hear a relatively unknown gem from music history, the Andante quasi recitativo by the Swedish Elfrida Andrée. She was a pioneer in many ways: conductor, organizer, concert organizer, composer of some 135 works and tireless fighter for women's rights. Although from a musical family, she wanted to become a telegrapher although at the time that was impossible for women. Four years later, that policy was changed and she still began training. But music went where it couldn't go and through studies with her father and the local organist she ended up with the Danish composer Niels Gade. In 1861 she began in Stockholm as one of Sweden's first female organists, and six years later she became organist at Gothenburg Cathedral. She wrote several organ works - including two organ symphonies - as well as choral works, songs, works for orchestra and chamber music. The lyrical Andante quasi recitativo from 1877 is an important addition to the romantic string orchestra repertoire. Carried, long melodies, restless Wagnerian harmony and agonized self-expression at its most mature. And with a wonderful concertmaster solo. 

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) 

Cello Concerto in E, op. 85 (1919) 

• Adagio - Moderato 

• Lento - Allegro molto 

• Adagio 

• Allegro - Moderato - Allegro ma non troppo - Adagio 

The horrors of World War I had deeply affected Edward Elgar. Constant reports came in of tens of thousands of British soldiers killed, an amount almost unimaginable. And in his summer cottage on the coast in Sussex, he could hear the artillery fire across the street daily. In March 1918, the composer had to go to the hospital to have his inflamed tonsils removed, at that time a painful and not harmless operation for someone of age. A few days after the operation - he was still in the hospital - he gestured for a piece of note paper and wrote down a motif, to which he paid no further attention. A few months later he carefully set himself back to work and in a fairly short time a violin sonata, a string quartet and a piano quintet were produced.

Elgar had not forgotten the motif from the hospital, however, and slowly the idea of using it in a cello concerto grew. He had already made some sketches, which he showed to conductor Landon Ronald and cellist Felix Salmond. Their enthusiasm gave him great impetus to finish the work. Every morning he was working at his piano before five in the morning, and by the end of July he could report that the Cello Concerto was nearly complete. The premiere conducted by Elgar himself with Salmond as soloist on October 27, 1919, went downright miserable, which was mainly due to the far too short preparation time. But within a year of this fiasco, the work experienced more than a hundred performances worldwide.

At intermission we will serve a free drink.

Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) 

Symphony no. 7 in d, op. 70 (1884-1885) 

• Allegro maestoso 

• Poco adagio 

• Scherzo: Vivace - Poco meno mosso 

• Finale: Allegro 

In the mid-1970s, the talented Antonin Dvořák was noticed by Johannes Brahms and music critic Eduard Hanslick, causing Dvořák's compositions to be noticed beyond the country's borders. However, the final international breakthrough followed with Dvořák's sensational success in London. At the request of the Philharmonic Society of London, the composer had ventured across for the first time in 1884. Besides an overwhelming reception, an invitation for the following year and three well-paid composition commissions awaited him there. Needless to say, it was a relief for Dvorák to finally be put on his hands without prejudice. "I have come to the conviction that a new, and God willing, happier time is dawning for me here in England, which I hope will bear fruit for Czech art in general." Inspired by the impressive quality and quantity of British orchestras, Dvorák began work on his Seventh Symphony that same year, commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London. It became his most serious and dramatic orchestral work, with two combative corner movements, a breathtaking Poco adagio (in which fierce accents contrast sharply with passages full of pure beauty) and a Vivace grafted heavily on Czech folk music. Self-conscious and empowered by British appreciation, Antonín Dvorák reached a height in his Seventh Symphony that brought him alongside Beethoven and Brahms. The world was open to him.