Cellist Antonio Meneses<\/a> and the Northern Sinfonia have just made a stunning recording of Elgar and Gal\u2019s cello concerti <\/a>with his longtime friend and collaborator, conductor Claudio Cruz. Although I wasn\u2019t involved in the recording, Avie Records asked me to write the liner notes for the CD, which I was very happy to do. \u00a0The upshot of this project is that we\u2019re very happy to present expanded versions of the Gal and Elgar essays as special Explore the Score features, including clips from Antonio\u2019s new CD, due out in June. You can read the essay on the Elgar Cello Concerto here..<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n ______________________________________________________________<\/p>\n \u2018Why does one write a concerto?\u2019<\/strong><\/em> Hans G\u00e1l asked himself this question in the unlikely context of the 1954 BournemouthWinter Gardens Society Magazine<\/em>. His pointedly personal response is simplicity itself. \u2018A concerto, to my mind, is one of the most thrilling, most fascinating problems of composition, a problem of form, style and expression that demands the utmost experience and technical resourcefulness.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hans G\u00e1l was born in 1890 just\u00a0outside\u00a0Vienna, where he studied with Richard Robert and Eusebius Mandyczewski. He rose to great prominence in 1920\u2019s and 30\u2019s Germany and Austria, particularly as an operatic composer, but when Hitler came to power in 1933, G\u00e1l lost his position as director of the Conservatory in Mainz and his music was banned. The war years brought great challenges and personal tragedies, but he continued to compose prolifically throughout. He eventually settled inEdinburgh, where he would go on to teach atEdinburghUniversityfor many years.<\/p>\n The Cello Concerto was composed primarily in 1944. The early 1940s had been difficult for G\u00e1l. In March 1942 his mother died. The following month, his aunt and sister took their own lives to avoid deportation toAuschwitz. The strain of such upheaval and tragedy evidently became too much for G\u00e1l\u2019s youngest son, Peter, who took his life in December 1942 at the age of only 18. Like many of G\u00e1l\u2019s wartime works, including the Second Symphony, the Cello Concerto was composed with no promise or immediate hope of performance.<\/p>\n Cellist Antonio Meneses<\/p><\/div>\n The Concerto was premiered by the G\u00f6teborg Orchestra in November 1950, with cellist Guido Vecchi, conducted Armando La Rosa Parodi. G\u00e1l uses an orchestra of Beethovenian proportions- double wind, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. G\u00e1l neatly summed up the central challenge of the genre: \u201cThis problem has been solved by the great composers in different ways, but its essence remains the same\u2026 how to arrive at an ideal balance of symphonically-conceived music and the relaxed playfulness of a brilliant solo part as the central, commanding feature.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no questioning the brilliance of the solo writing in G\u00e1l\u2019s Cello Concerto, which particularly exploits, as so often in G\u00e1l\u2019s writing for the instrument, the uppermost reaches of the cello tessitura. G\u00e1l\u2019s precise balance of symphonic conception with improvisatory playfulness is manifest immediately in the Concerto\u2019s opening paragraph, a soaring melody which encompasses almost the entire register of the solo cello over lush orchestral accompaniment,<\/a> followed by a cadenza. Here the soloist muses on the accompanimental figure played by the orchestral celli in the previous passage-<\/a> a telling first example of G\u00e1l\u2019s clever integration of symphonic and concertante writing. The first movement is conceived on a broad scale, with textures ranging from the extended duet for cello and solo oboe<\/a> to a central orchestral tutti of shattering intensity.<\/a> In spite of the tightly knit connections between musical ideas and the symphonic scale of the movement, G\u00e1l was keen to avoid \u201ca symphony with a solo instrument obligato… This conception of a concerto, to my mind, contradicts the very meaning of a type of composition, the purpose of which is to give a noble setting to a spirited, fascinating individuality on the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n After the austere E minor of the first movement, the flowing Andante<\/em> opens in A-flat major, with a tender oboe melody over the simplest of accompaniments, a gentle tread of crotchet chords in the strings<\/a>. This is one of G\u00e1l\u2019s favourite textures- for instance, the Third Symphony, written not long after the Cello Concerto, begins in almost exactly the same sound world.<\/a> The cello takes up the oboe tune, but rather than repeat the complete melody, soon breaks off into a gently ruminative cadenza<\/a>, a perfect example of G\u00e1l\u2019s wish that the solo writing always maintain \u201ca most stimulating element of improvisatory spontaneity.\u201d \u201cHowever closely built the musical substance may be, there must always he sufficient scope and time for the graceful or expressive or dreamy or purely brilliant exuberance of that capricious character who is the centre of events…\u201d<\/p>\n The final Allegretto<\/em> Vivace e con spirito<\/em> opens with a gruff swagger and restless energy that is worlds away from the tender song-without-words of the Andante<\/em>.<\/a> The heroic tone and 2\/4 time signature may bring to mind the last movement of the Dvorak Concerto. After a playful second subject, the soloist embarks on the longest and most dramatic of the work\u2019s many cadenzas. <\/a>When the orchestra rejoins, it is not with the march that opened the movement, as might have been expected, but with a melancholy reminiscence of the Concerto\u2019s opening theme. However, the protagonist is not to be drawn into nostalgic reveries, and quickly reasserts the heroic tone of the Finale\u2019s opening<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201c<\/em>The success of a concerto,\u201d said G\u00e1l, \u201cdepends\u2026 upon whether the composer has been able to make this central character stand out as an interesting, original figure.\u201d G\u00e1l\u2019s \u201ccentral character\u201d indeed stands out for the way in which the soloist strides effortlessly between whimsy, fantasy, ecstatic lyricism, fiery virtuosity and heroic striving. In the Concerto\u2019s coda, G\u00e1l lightens the works tone with a shift of tonality to E major, and a shift of mood to <\/a>Allegretto grazioso, alla marcia<\/a>, <\/em>and the concerto ends on a buoyant, spirited note<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n C. 2012 Kenneth Woods (www.kennethwoods.net)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/AntonioMeneses.jpg\" "\\"AntonioMeneses\\"")
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