Cello Concerto No. 2 (Saint-Saëns)
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 119, is written in two movements, like his Fourth Piano Concerto. It was composed for a Dutch cellist, Joseph Hollmann, in 1902. The Second Concerto is much more virtuosic than the First, but does not possess the thematic inventiveness and harmonic intricacy of the First.[citation needed]
"In many respects, it's a finer creation than its famous predecessor in A minor Op. 33; larger in overall concept (it comprises two main sections, each subdivided into two movements) and arguably of greater thematic nobility, the concerto remains largely unknown."[1]
Contents
Music
- Allegro moderato e maestoso
- Andante sostenuto
The first movement is in sonata form. The second part is a prayer, in E-flat major in simple ternary form. The first movement ends with a scale in artificial harmonics, like the scale in the First Cello Concerto. The second movement is a moto perpetuo in G minor. It ends abruptly in a cadenza, followed by a major-key recapitulation of the first movement, and a coda.
Recordings
- Zuill Bailey (Cello) and David Wiley (Roanoke Symphony Orchestra)
- Lynn Harrell (Cello) and Riccardo Chailly (Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra)
- Steven Isserlis (Cello) and Christoph Eschenbach (North German Radio Symphony Orchestra)
- Maria Kliegel (Cello) and Jean-François Monnard (Bournemouth Sinfonietta)
- Torleif Thedéen (Cello) and Jean-Jacques Kantorow (Tapiola Sinfonietta)
- Laszlo Varga (Cello) and Siegfried Landau (Westphalian Symphony Orchestra)
- Christine Walevska (Cello) and Eliahu Inbal (Orchestra National de Monte-Carlo)
- Jamie Walton (Cello) and Alex Briger (Philharmonia Orchestra)
