Dvorak Archives

Expanding the Cello Repertoire to Include Women Composers

Several years back I discovered a recording of a beautiful concerto written by the French pianist and composer, Marie Jäell. I immediately fell in love with it’s infectious melodies and knew I wanted to be able to play the piece. I discovered it was unpublished but the manuscripts were housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg. A friend helped me obtain them so that I could prepare a score for cello and piano. The Jäell concerto is the first known cello concerto written by a woman. Marie Jäell wrote the concerto in 1882 and dedicated the concerto to the cellist Jules Desart who performed the premier. One may assume that he helped her understand cello technique as the work is in a very comfortable key for cello [...]

By Wendy Velasco|2024-07-05T20:01:23-04:00January 30th, 2023|Categories: Artistic Vision, Repertoire|Tags: Saint-Saëns, Marie Jäell, Women Composers, Xavier Phillips, Dvorak, cello concerto, David Popper, Franz Liszt, Cello Repertoire|

Cello Concerto Overview: The Should Haves (Part I)

Reprinted with permission from Interlude. Concert Favorites: Cello Concertos That You Should Learn Wilhelm Fitzenhagen My teacher János Starker used to say that cellist soloists have to be ready to play a greater number of concertos than our more brilliant sister, the violinist, who can play an entire season with four or perhaps five concerti under their fingers—think Brahms, Mendelsohn, Barber, and Sibelius; or Bruch, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Bartók. Likewise, audience members are thrilled to hear a pianist perform the masterworks of Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, Mozart, and either of the Prokofiev’s; or, Grieg, Schumann, Shostakovich, Bartók and either of the Ravels. Cellists, though, have the disadvantage of fewer pieces written for their instrument and not all of them are considered the quality of the concertos named above. Some are neglected or obscure [...]

By Janet Horvath|2024-07-05T20:10:38-04:00April 10th, 2022|Categories: Repertoire|Tags: Elgar, Jian Wang, Dvorak, Walton, Jacqueline du Pré, Walton Concerto, Dvorak Concerto, Elgar Concerto, Mischa Maisky, Standard Repertoire, Cello Repertoire, Janet Horvath, Gregor Piatigorsky, Cello Concertos, Kian Soltani|

Conversation with Alban Gerhardt (April, 2003)

Interview by Tim Janof After winning several international competitions early on (Wettbewerbserfolgen 1990 at the ARD, and the Leonard Rose International Competition in 1993), Alban Gerhardt has established himself as one of the world's leading cellists. His career-launching debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra has led to performances as soloist with such orchestras as the NDR Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich, and Frankfurt Radio Orchestras, Bamberg Symphony, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Dresden, Hamburg, and London Philharmonic Orchestras, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, National Symphony, Houston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre National de Belgique, St. Petersburger Philharmonikern, Shinsei Symphony Orchestra Tokyo and Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, as well as the chamber orchestras of Lausanne, Amsterdam, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. Among the [...]

By Tim Janof|2020-08-10T13:30:54-04:00August 5th, 2019|Categories: Internet Cello Society Archive, Interviews|Tags: Dvorak, etude, soloist, regimen, Alban Gerhardt, ICS, interview, Internet Cello Society, Gerhardt, Concerto, Janoff, Haydn, Germany, Practice, Helmerson|

Conversation with Gary Hoffman (September, 1999)

Interview by Tim Janof American cellist Gary Hoffman was born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1956. At 15 he made his London recital debut in Wigmore Hall; his New York recital debut occurred in 1979. At the age of 22 he became the youngest faculty appointee in the history of Indiana University School of Music, where he remained for eight years. Mr. Hoffman, who is frequently invited to hold master classes, has coached cellists at numerous institutions and festivals, including Aspen, the Gregor Piatigorsky Seminar at the University of Southern California, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Casals Festival in Prades, the Eastman School of Music, Schleswig-Holstein, Verbier, Ravinia, etc. He achieved international renown following his victory at the Rostropovich International Competition in Paris in 1986. He has appeared as soloist [...]

By Tim Janof|2020-03-10T14:56:58-04:00August 5th, 2019|Categories: Internet Cello Society Archive, Interviews|Tags: Dvorak, Baroque, Tim Janoff, Bach, Internet Cello Society, expression, Concerto, ICS, Janos Starker, Gary Hoffman, performance, Lalo, Technique, Starker|

Finding Dvorak’s Cello Concerto – by Anssi Karttunen

As I often perform concertos that were either written for me or that few others play, it is always a welcome and special occasion when I am invited to play one of the well-known masterpieces of our repertoire. When that happens I try to take a fresh look at the piece. A couple of years ago I was asked to play the Dvorak Concerto at a cello festival in Beauvais, France. As several years had passed since I last played it I decided to take this as a challenge to see if I my experience of working with living composers would reveal any surprises in a piece that we all know so well. I studied the piece over 35 years ago with at least three of my teachers: William [...]

By Anssi Karttunen|2022-10-05T22:12:44-04:00February 9th, 2019|Categories: In the Practice Room|Tags: Interpretation, Dvorak, cello concerto, architecture|

The Forgotten Live Video Recording: Du Pré & the Dvořák Cello Concerto, 1968 — by Tony Woodcock

The most wonderful video performance of the Dvořák Cello Concerto by Jacqueline Du Pré and Daniel Barenboim was added to YouTube just a few weeks ago. In this CelloBello exclusive blog is a moving, personal description by a young London musician, Tony Woodcock, who was 17 years old at the time. Below he recounts the unexpected political backdrop for this historic concert, which was hastily arranged in response to the 1968 Russian invasion of Dvořák’s home country of Czechoslovakia. Tony Woodcock, by the way, grew up to eventually become the President of the New England Conservatory of Music, and was a primary supporter of the founding of CelloBello.com. My heartfelt thanks to him for his role in making our website possible, and for illuminating us on an extraordinary history that [...]

By Tony Woodcock|2020-10-29T22:20:59-04:00November 9th, 2017|Categories: Artistic Vision, Interpersonal Relationships, Performance, Videos|Tags: jacqueline, history, world war, london symphony orchestra, Rostropovich, Zukerman, Dvorak, cello concerto, perlman, barenboim, dupre|

Tour of Duty, Tour of Pleasure — by Aron Zelkowicz

A postcard from Vienna: By the time the Danube winds into concrete beds through Stadtpark, the water is just a trickle. Children in their parkas swing on the playground, the U-bahn train pulls into its station, and people stroll or bike over the canal’s bridges, all within a stone’s throw of the surface. This view from our hotel is lovely and quaint, for those of us on tour with the Pittsburgh Symphony that have north-facing rooms (those with opposite views can peer down on the bustling skating rink next door). Pittsburghers, no strangers to rivers and bridges, hardly needed reminders of the horrible flooding that occurred this week. The tame canal is at odds with what we’ve seen on the front page of local papers and all over TV. I [...]

By Aron Zelkowicz|2017-10-30T05:18:40-04:00November 9th, 2012|Categories: Cello Travel, Orchestra|Tags: cellobello, orchestras, gestures, struggle, musicians, Aron, challenges, Zelkowicz, endpin, live performances, stage, audience, perspective, Dvorak, themes, illness, acoustics, cello, tour|