At A Glance
Edward Elgar composed his Cello Concerto late in his career, in a stern yet lyrical style that was new to his music. The 1919 premiere was under-rehearsed, and the piece only rose to the top of the cello repertoire in the 1960s when it was championed by Jacqueline du Pré. Unusual for a concerto, it is set in four movements, rather than three, though the only real pause lies between the second and third.
During a three-week trip to Scotland in 1829, Felix Mendelssohn visited the Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh and was moved to record this observation: “In the evening twilight we went today to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved. . . . The chapel close to it is now roofless, grass and ivy grow there, and at that broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything round is broken and moldering and the bright sky shines in. I believe I have found today in that old chapel the beginning of my Scottish Symphony.” It was 1841 before he returned to it, not employing folk melodies from Scotland, but yet conjuring up a folk-like spirit, saturated in a passion that stirs Romantic souls.