Dvorak: Rondo in G minor for cello & orchestra, Op. 94, B. 181

The award winning Argentinian cellist Sol Gabetta focuses her considerable talents on Late Romantic cello repertoire on her latest release on RCA Red Seal/Sony Music Entertainment. Gabetta’s sensational live recording of the Elgar: Cello Concerto is the centrepiece to a stunning new album from one of classical music’s most thrilling and successful young stars. Ms. Gabetta is joined on the works by Elgar, Dvorák and Respighi by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Mario Venzago.

In addition to Elgar’s concerto, Ms. Gabetta’s new release features three of Elgar’s miniatures, the introspective Sospiri and the light-hearted, romantic salon pieces Salut d’amour and La capricieuse, in new arrangements for cello and orchestra. The album also includes Antonín Dvorák’s Waldesruh and Rondo and Ottorino Respighi’s rarely recorded Adagio con variazioni.

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.

Orchestrated by Jarmil Burghauser

Antonin Dvorák’s Cello Concerto Op. 104 is one of his most famous, but what is not so well known is that he also composed a Cello Concerto in A major (without opus number). In this work, as in his first two symphonies, Dvorák adhered to the classical and romantic traditions.

This extremely virtuosic concerto and other works are masterly performed by Ramon Jaffé, once described by Vladimir Ashkenazy as “a cellist of world class”.