# Why do people like cello concertos like Saint-Saens and Lalo? Are they 'beautiful'?



## qfcbv (Jan 22, 2021)

Most of the favorite cello pieces (99% all romantic) make no sense at all to me.
For me, 



 is beauty. I simply do not understand how Britten's suites (which are not in any specific key, by the way) or Debussy's sonata are good. Please explain why the major public like pieces like these.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

The bulk of the standard repertoire is Romantic-Early Modern. The Baroque is more-or-less represented by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and a handful of works by a few others; likewise the Classical period by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven (and Beethoven arguably had one foot in the Romantic age). The pre-Baroque and post-WWII era is underrepresented in comparison, but sometimes a pre-Baroque composer will catch on for a while, and contemporary works seem to get much more attention than they did back when I started collecting classical music in the 1980s.

For cello concertos the two biggies are Dvorak and Elgar, and perhaps they deserve it; both are Romantic or Late-Romantic, and very heart-felt. My favorite Cello Concertos are Shostakokovich, Barber, and Britten (if you want to count Britten's _Cello Symphony_) as a cello concerto; and though technically Early-Modern those concertos also have a Romantic feel to them. I think the cello in itself is sort of a "Romantic" instrument, very deep and soulful, and sort of lends itself to some tear-jerking effect as with Brahms' two wonderful _Cello Sonatas_, though Zoltan Kodaly wrote a piece for solo cello that I have on CD somewhere (and the name of it escapes my memory at the moment) played by Jonas Starker, and as I remember it gets pretty wild.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

qfcbv said:


> Most of the favorite cello pieces (99% all romantic) make no sense at all to me.
> For me,
> 
> 
> ...


Your link is a beautiful melodic work. Not all that different (broadly-speaking) than this:


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

Coach G said:


> though Zoltan Kodaly wrote a piece for solo cello that I have on CD somewhere (and the name of it escapes my memory at the moment) played by Jonas Starker, and as I remember it gets pretty wild.


Sonata for Solo Cello in B Minor. That Janos Starker recording is absolutely wild, and really haunting too. The scordatura (fancy name for downtuning strings) creates a lot of wacky, wild chords. There's a certain part in the 1st movement where Starker is actually playing past the fingerboard


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

More than one composer has been intimidated by writing a cello concerto, including Brahms. But why they make no sense to you is difficult to understand. Maybe it's the range of the cello? The timbre of it? It can be a very soulful, very profound sound. There few things in the whole of music that are as moving as Bloch's Schelomo. The Dvorak is a beautiful piece, as is the Saint-Saens. I've never been all that thrilled with the Elgar. But the cello concertos of Victor Herbert are great. The Haydn concertos are quite popular but not among my favorites - and yet I still vividly remember hearing no. 1 played by Pablo Casals almost 50 years ago.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

qfcbv said:


> Most of the favorite cello pieces (99% all romantic) make no sense at all to me.
> For me,
> 
> 
> ...


The most popular cello pieces are not 99% romantic, I hope you're exaggerating for polemical purposes. Bach's solo works and Vivaldi, Boccherini and Haydn's cello concertos are really popular; one could mention some rare, early ones like L.Leo, L.Hoffmann, J.Rejcha etc. also, though seldomly performed. (Edit: and CPE Bach, as mentioned in a post below).

But some later ones get performed too (Shostakovich, Lutoslawski, Prokofiev, Britten, Schnittke, Barber, plus dozens of others of course, but with less frequency).

As for the romantically coloured you don't seem to like, I wonder if Volkmann's, Schumann's, and maybe Davidov's for instance wouldn't appeal to you anyway, since they are perhaps not so far from Haydn IMHO.

Personally I think such stylistic variation is a bless, and the later works include options for widening one's horizon as regards listening experiences in many different fields. I'd hate being stuck with only music from one early period, and the regressiveness and predictable patterns involved in that.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

A lot of people here really don't care for the Elgar at all, people express their mixed feelings or dislike of it whenever it comes up, I'm curious why.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Just a note that a well-attended poll on another forum found Shostakovich #1 the third most popular among all cello concertos. #2 is just as worthy, but its rarified and inward nature limits its popularity.

For my money, the greatest cello concerto is the one that Beethoven forgot to write.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

KenOC said:


> Just a note that a well-attended poll on another forum found Shostakovich #1 the third most popular among all cello concertos. #2 is just as worthy, but its rarified and inward nature limits its popularity.
> 
> For my money, the greatest cello concerto is the one that Beethoven forgot to write.


Closest thing we ever got was the Triple Concerto


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> A lot of people here really don't care for the Elgar at all, people express their mixed feelings or dislike of it whenever it comes up, I'm curious why.


I like the Elgar _Cello Concerto_, and actually find it to be more interesting than the more popular Dvorak _Cello Concerto_. In _Lives of the Great Composers_, Harold Schonberg described the Elgar _Cello Concerto_ as the composer's swan song, said it was Elgar's final statement, that after the composer lost his wife he became bitter and isolated, didn't like the direction that classical music was going in, and said that he disliked music in general. I think if one approaches Elgar's _Cello Concerto_ with that in mind, the piece makes more sense and becomes more interesting.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Not a cello concerto, but I like the way that Brahms makes use of the cello in the slow movement of his _Piano Concerto #2_; another tear-jerker.

And how about Richard Strauss' almost-Cello Concerto: _Don Quixote_?


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

qfcbv said:


> Most of the favorite cello pieces (99% all romantic) make no sense at all to me.
> For me,
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for sharing.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

We've had threads here before about the top cello works. The Dvorak concerto and Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme are probably the most popular and most often performed overall, unless one counts the Bach solo suites. The Shostakovich concerto is a favorite of mine, as is Bloch's Schelomo:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ah...this!


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## qfcbv (Jan 22, 2021)

My problem is that I don't like the massive changes of keys that usually happen in romantic pieces; a sharp or a flat for a sonata form is fine, but changing 1 semi-tone for each bar is too much.
I wonder why my favorite pieces aren't even accepted anywhere (RV 415, inauthentic but just OMG) but pieces that seem strange like Lalo are so widely accepted.


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## qfcbv (Jan 22, 2021)




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## qfcbv (Jan 22, 2021)

KenOC said:


> Ah...this!


Sheer traumatizing and emphasis makes this concerto good


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## qfcbv (Jan 22, 2021)

No one has answered my question yet; why/how are romantic pieces good?

The 'king' and 'queen (Dvorak concerto and Elgar concerto) are obvious, but the minor good pieces are baffling to me.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Do you want a technical analysis then?


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

qfcbv said:


> No one has answered my question yet; why/how are romantic pieces good?
> 
> The 'king' and 'queen (Dvorak concerto and Elgar concerto) are obvious, but the minor good pieces are baffling to me.


Have you read this forum? Plenty of poll. games you can find your answer.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

qfcbv said:


> No one has answered my question yet; why/how are romantic pieces good?


I don't think anyone _can_ answer this question. It ultimately comes down to personal taste. I don't think we need another discussion about objectivity vs subjectivity. Isn't it enough to know that other people quite clearly enjoy them, even if you don't?

Let me ask you: What kind of explanation would persuade you that these pieces are good?


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

qfcbv said:


> Most of the favorite cello pieces (99% all romantic) make no sense at all to me.
> For me,
> 
> 
> ...


Have you never heard the expression "beauty is in the eye of the beholder?" If these romantic works are popular it is because a large number of people find them beautiful.


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