Program Booklet Spotlight on the Cellos - Residentie Orkest

What are you going to listen to?

From Rossini to Ravel

What could be better than one cellist? Two cellists, of course. And what is even more beautiful than two cellists? Six cellists, of course! Tonight you will hear six top cellists from the cello group of the Residentie Orkest.

Their program features almost exclusively arrangements because original works for six celli are now extremely rare. So the pieces we get to hear tonight were all originally written for a different instrumentation: Ravel's masterpiece is a string quartet, Rossini's Overture Guillaume Tell is an orchestral work (although the piece is indeed introduced by the cello group). De Falla's Canciones populares were composed for voice and piano, Popper's Requiem was intended for three celli and orchestra or piano, and Piatti's Quartettino was written for four cellists.

For a long time, playing arrangements was considered "not done": everything had to be performed in the originally prescribed instrumentation, because only then would you do a piece justice. But now we wonder: is that really so? A change has taken place and the taboo on playing arrangements at a concert has completely disappeared.

In the days when there were no gramophone or CD recordings and there was a piano in many living rooms, there was no such restriction. It was music or no music. Thus, entire symphonies and operas were often adapted for piano immediately after completion of the score, often by the composer himself who earned an extra penny in this way. After all, not everyone had the opportunity to run to Concert Hall to hear the pieces there in their original scoring. So the works were immediately arranged for piano, but four-handed. While playing, the pianists also often burst into song and the joy was complete. What made the enjoyment extra great was the musical imagination that was engaged to get as close as possible to the required timbre. For example, there was no greater delight than to imitate on the piano the sound of a bassoon, oboe or timpani. In this way, before World War II, music lived not only in the Concert Hall, but also at home. After the war, home music gradually became rarer, and a rigor occurred that made the original scoring take on an almost moralistic meaning. The arrangements ended up in second-hand music stores, and soon no pianist could be found to play the orchestral scores in piano arrangements, and certainly not in carefree "prima vista" playing.

But now another development has begun: playing arrangements at concerts. The many superb saxophone ensembles formed at the end of the last century, for example, existed by the grace of a huge amount of music not written for saxophones: a mer à boire! Moreover, the cello ensemble "The 12 cellists of the Berliner Philharmoniker" was formed in 1972. Such a thing had never been seen before, a virtuoso ensemble for which precisely one original piece had been written! The point was: these cellists played so wonderfully well that the entire musical literature was open to them!

De Falla 's Canciones populares Espanolas was originally written for voice and piano. For many of us, the cycle is associated with the unforgettable voice of Victoria de los Angeles, who died in 2005. Now her unique sound will be taken over by a cello. Manuel de Falla was an ascetic Spaniard who went through life alone, but knew how to express the fierce emotions of love, whether answered or not, like no other. De Falla was one of the first to use the folk music of his own country as a guide in classical music. His teacher Felipe Pedrell had shown him that way.

Ravel's string quartet was already adapted during Ravel's lifetime and even with his approval. note for a zogheten ondes-Martinot, an electronic instrument with the sound of a singing saw. The four cellists will undoubtedly approach the string quartet more closely. Ravel wrote the work when he was 28, and he dedicated it to his conservatory teacher Gabriel Fauré, who did not love it. Claude Debussy was enamored of it, however, and was not bothered by the fact that this work was written along the lines of his own quartet, written 10 years earlier. It is incredible that this perfect work was composed by a boy who had just finished his training.

Piatti wrote his lighthearted quartet for four celli on the occasion of the final exam

conservatory in Bergamo. Piatti was a well-known cello soloist who once received his beautiful instrument, an Amati, as a gift from Franz Liszt. Later a Stradivarius came into his possession which is now on loan under the name "the Piatti" to the winner of the Piatigorsky competition. The cello quartet was written in a simple structure, with plenty of irony and easy-going melodies. With this joyful work, Piatti wished his students a life "like a long vacation, without a dull moment. He wished the young cellists to enjoy cheerful dance rhythms into old age.

David Popper wrote his Requiem, a one-movement work for three celli and orchestra, for the music publisher Daniel Rahter, who had died in 1891. Rahter and Popper were friends, and the first edition of the Requiem included a poem, which begins like this: 'Tränen, die Musik geworden, Treue Freundschaft beut sie.' A century and a half ago, people did not shy away from this kind of pompous sentimentality. But Popper's music can still charm us. In cello circles, Popper's forty etudes are also well known and loved.

Rossini' s Overture Guillaume Tell begins with a beautiful introduction for the cello group

of the opera orchestra. The rise of the sun is depicted and the day breaks. Then a storm rises, followed by a sweet scene with a pastoral melody played by the English horn. A finale with a march by the soldiers concludes this imaginative piece, and finally we are told that it was inspired by Beethoven's pastoral Sixth Symphony.

The work that deals with the famous Swiss freedom fighter William Tell shooting a famous apple off his son's famous head without hitting the child. It is the prelude to Rossini's fortieth opera, and for some obscure reason the composer stopped thereafter. He wrote a huge amount of pieces for piano after this, ranging from salon music to musical satire, the Péchés de vieillesse, the Sins of old age.

Why he did not produce any more musical dramatic work after William Tell is completely unclear. For another forty years he mainly did...nothing! He did visit the fashionable salons, however, and developed into a master cook. Thus, his name lives on not only in the vast amount of music, especially operas, but also in, for example, the tournedos Rossini.

Katja Reichenfeld.