Edward Elgar’s cello concerto is a testament to the devastation and pain he saw and felt due to the First World-War, and eerily foreshadows the destruction and death that would befall Europe during World-War Two. Elgar’s concerto was premiered in 1919 and although the public did not receive it well at the time, it is now a staple in any professional cellists repertoire. There also seems to be a connection between the concerto and certain female cellists and although it was premiered by a male cellist (Felix Salmond), the concerto, one could argue, has been pushed to public conscience by women.
Beatrice Harrison was born in India and came to England when she was an infant. She entered the Royal College of Music at quite a young. She was a friend of the composer Roger Quilter, and also was the first cellist to perform many of Delius’s works for cello. Ms. Harrison personally studied the concerto with Elgar himself. Subsequently he requested that she perform the work every time he conducted it. The first “official” recording (which can be found on youtube!) was made in 1919 with Beatrice Harrison and Edward Elgar conducting. She played a cello made by Pietro Guarneri.
Not until Jacqueline du Pre came on to the scene around 1962 was the concerto really made “famous.” Du Pre was born in 1945 and for her first professional concert with orchestra she played the Elgar concerto with the BBC Symphony. Like Beatrice Harrison, Elgar’s concerto is a piece with which she most closely identified. Many would consider her as the consummate interpreter of the concerto. During her brief career she recorded the concerto 4 times and they remain her most popular recordings. For a large portion of her career she performed on the Davidov cello of Antonio Stradivarius. During the last 3-4 years of her career she played on a Goffriller cello and then a modern instrument by Sergio Peresson.
I personally discovered the Elgar concerto in high school and instantly fell in love with it. I immediately found a score and forced my cello teacher (also a woman) to give me the fingerings to the opening movement. I have briefly listened to many cellists perform Elgar via youtube or iTunes clips, including Rostropovich, Yo-Yo-Ma, Jan Vogler, etc. and none of there interpretations have impressed me. Finally I came across a recording featuring the Argentinean cellist Sol Gabetta with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.
Sol Gabetta was born in 1981 and won her first competition at age 10. She studied at schools in Madrid, Switzerland, and Berlin, and currently teaches at the Basel Academy of Music in Switzerland. She has performed with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and has received outstanding reviews by The Times, Gramophone Magazine, The Strad and others. Ms. Gabetta plays a G. B. Guadagnini cello dated around 1759.
The opening e-minor chord of the first movement (adagio-moderato) is the most resonant opening of this concerto I have yet heard. The following passage is both musical and dramatic and the double-stop chords are precisely in tune. When the opening theme is presented in the solo cello, Gabetta’s playing is lyrical yet commanding especially when she reaches the top of the e-scale and the full orchestra enters. When the second theme comes in, her playing remains lyrical and tender and evokes the yearning that one feels from the middle section. She and the orchestra end the first movement with a repeat of the first theme and stunningly charge into the second movement.
The recitative-like introduction to the second movement (lento-allegro molto) is so excitingly pulled off. Sol Gabetta then takes charge and joyfully performs the jolly, scherzo type second movement. She leaves the listener on the edge of their seat right up till the last notes.
Sol Gabetta brings back her tender and lyrical playing in the third movement (adagio). Her rich sound wholeheartedly evokes the sense of nostalgia one feels upon hearing this movement.
Sol Gabetta’s virtuosity shines in the fourth (Allegro-Moderato-Allegro, ma non troppo-Poco più lento-Adagio) and last movement of Elgar’s concerto. She firmly, yet at the same time delicately states the opening theme, though gradually intensifies until she reaches the pinnacle of the opening with an arpeggiated cadenza-like passage sounding as though she had picked up a seasoned violin in her cello’s place. Here the movements momentum begins and cello and orchestra play a game of cat and mouse in this rondo movement until finally the low strings and solo cello become one. It is then that Elgar changes mood and brings back the elegiac and nostalgic quality of the third movement, which she executes perfectly. Ms. Gabetta beautifully lulls us into a false sense of calm, but Elgar ends the movement and his concerto with a coda utilizing the opening chords of the first movement. With yet again an unreal resonance Sol Gabetta strikes the chords and then with the orchestra quickly brings the work to a close.
For me, Sol Gabetta’s performance is very much inspired from Jacqueline du Pre, but of course she truly makes it her own. All three of the women it seems have really made this piece their own. Why there seems to be this connect between these women and Elgar’s concerto, I don’t think there is a proper answer. I have not come across nor do I have immediate access to any personal information in regards to Beatrice Hamilton and therefore have no insight into her thoughts. For Jacqueline du Pre, the Elgar strikes a personal note only at the end of her life when she is suffering from Multiple Sclerosis and is eventually killed by the disease. But she essentially began her career with this piece and it is only through retrospect that we see the significance of the piece’s elegiac quality. As for Ms. Gabetta, again there is not enough information out there seeing as she is a living and still very young artist. But there is no denying the work’s significance to her. I see in her the intelligence, vibrancy, and virtuosity that the world saw in Jacqueline du Pre, though hopefully she is left to us for a much longer time.
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