HAMBURG, GERMANY – NDR ELBPHILHARMONIE ORCHESTER – DVOŘÁK, ELGAR, STRAVINSKY

Sol Gabetta, cello
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester
Semyon Bychkov, conductor

PROGRAMME
Dvořák: Carnival / concert overture, Op. 92
Elgar: Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra in E minor, Op. 85
Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps / Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts

Venue Note:

“I particularly love the Elgar concert,” Sol Gabetta confesses in an interview in 2023. The colours, the songfulness – the wit and the liveliness that flash up again and again in a surprising way: for the star cellist, everything is just right here. The work had a rather bumpy start to musical life: a poorly rehearsed premiere in 1919 damaged its reputation, which was only overwhelmingly restored in 1965 by the very young cellist Jacqueline du Pré. Incidentally, Elgar’s Cello Concerto shares the fate of success “at the second attempt” with the second major work in the Czech Philharmonic’s programme: Igor Stravinsky’s “Le sacre du printemps” also experienced a cracking scandal as a ballet before it began its triumphal march on the concert stages of the world.