Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104

This month, on the Chandos Classics label, we are re-releasing our recording of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor and the Konzertstück for Cello and Orchestra by Dohnányi (CHAN8662), performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Charles Mackerras, with Raphael Wallfisch the featured soloist.

The Cello Concerto in B minor by Dvořák has become one of his most popular works, and perhaps the most popular concerto ever written for the instrument. He was asked to write this piece by a friend of Wagner, the cellist Hanuš Wihan. Initially reluctant, Dvořák stated that the cello was indeed a fine orchestral instrument but totally insufficient for a solo concerto. Fortunately, he changed his mind upon hearing Victor Herbert’s Second Cello Concerto performed in concert, in 1894. The resulting Cello Concerto is richly inventive, full of deep feeling, and perfectly fitted to the cello. Dvořák combined his experience as an orchestral player with an understanding of the cello’s distinct textural qualities to produce a grand and emotionally intense work, one of his finest achievements.

Ernst von Dohnányi was highly acclaimed as a pianist-composer, and widely regarded during his lifetime as a successor to Liszt. As a composer, however, he had more in common with Brahms than with Liszt, despite his Hungarian heritage, and his creative output was not limited to the piano. His Konzertstück in D major is in fact a full-scale cello concerto, in three interconnected parts. A lyrical rhapsody, it begins quietly, the cello emerging out of the orchestra and seeming to sing, until parting with a sense of regret at the end.

Zuill Bailey’s recording of J.S. Bach's Suites for Solo Cello (TEL3197802) was released in 2010 and went straight to the top of the “Billboard” classical chart.

Last year he brought out a critically acclaimed CD devoted to music for cello and piano by Brahms (TEL3266402). This, his latest release, features one of the most enduring works in the romantic repertoire, Antonin Dvorak’s Cello Concerto. The orchestra on the disc, which also includes two of the composer’s Symphonic Poems “The Water Goblin” and “In Nature’s Realm”, is the Indianapolis Symphony and the conductor is Jun Märkl.

Zuill Bailey made his Telarc debut early in early 2009 with a CD called “Russian Masterpieces for Cello”, a disc which featured music by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich.

Towards the end of last year he joined forces with pianist Simone Dinnerstein in a critically acclaimed recording of Beethoven’s complete works for piano and cello. Since then his recording of J S Bach’s cello suites has been a massive success particularly in the USA where it spent four weeks in a row at No. 1 on the Billboard classical chart, and even made the top 30 in the New Artists chart.

Antonin Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, B. 191 was written in 1894–1895 for his friend, the cellist Hanuš Wihan. Dvořák wrote the concerto while in New York during his third term as the Director of the National Conservatory.

Yacov Slobodkin died in 2009 and was one of the most eminent musicians of the 20th century, belonging to the set of brilliant performers who had won international recognition for Russian performing art. On this CD, we hear his performances of the Dvořák Cello Concerto, Glazunov’s Serenade Espagnole and Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme.

Dvořák and cello? Why, of course – after all, his Concerto in B minor is the most frequently recorded cello concerto of all time. Dvořák himself esteemed it immensely: “...I have just finished a new concerto for cello, and I can tell you that I am absolutely certain that this concerto far outstrips the other two concertos of mine… Self-aggrandisement is not reliable – but I must tell you that I am terribly pleased with the work, and I think I am not mistaken.” However, several other Dvořák opuses for cello too deserve great attention owing to their sheer beauty.

In addition to two small moods pieces (Rondo, Silent Woods), it concerns his virtually unknown first cello concerto; the original version for piano and orchestra was instrumented by the Dvořák connoisseur Jarmil Burghauser within the intentions of Dvořák’s instrumentation of his first symphonies dating from the same period. In the concerto, the twenty-four-year-old Dvořák revels in ideas that in the case of another composer would suffice for several symphonies.

Our CD containing the complete Dvořák works for cello and orchestra features Tomáš Jamník, laureate of the Prague Spring international competition and one of the most talented young cellists of the present day. The conductor Tomáš Netopil, whose star is rapidly rising (noteworthy is his recent guest appearance with the Berliner Philharmoniker at concerts dedicated to the late Sir Charles Mackerras), is together with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra a superlative partner to Jamník. The young blood of Tomáš Jamník and Tomáš Netopil courses through the new recording of both Dvořák cello concertos.

For generations the Jávorkai family has been among Hungary’s most significant musical families in both classical and authentic folk music. Sándor and Ádám are Bank Austria Artists of the Year.

These historical recordings were considered lost after the war and are available for the first time complete and in real time (without any cut).

Gregor Piatigorksy plays three of the most beautiful cello concertos in the classical repertoire, by Dvorak, Saint Saens and Tchaikovsky.