Farewell to philosophy. Par BRYARS GAVIN. I have a great fondness for the lower string instruments: I am a bass player, my mother is a cellist, as are both my daughters; my own ensemble includes two violas, a cello and a bass, and for the instrumentation of my opera Medea I omit the entire violin section from the orchestra. As I have written a number of works for solo instrument or voice with orchestra I welcomed the opportunity to write a concerto for cello and orchestra and especially one which focuses particularly on the instrument’s lyrical qualities. Although the piece is in one continuous movement, and the soloist is playing almost without a break, it nevertheless falls into distinct sections which are recognisable by a shift of tempo as well as by a change in the music’s character. One of the early ideas Julian Lloyd Webber and I discussed was that it might form a companion piece to one of the Haydn concertos. Given my friendship with some members of the English Chamber Orchestra and my awareness of their repertoire, this suggested a number of particular musical references. The subtitle to the work, for example, combines the subtitles of two idiosyncratic Haydn symphonies and I allude to them in different ways but chiefly through orchestration: for The Philosopher by including a section in the concerto where the orchestration resembles that of the symphony’s first movement (pairs of English and French horns, muted violins and unmuted lower strings); for The Farewell, by the progressive reduction in the orchestration towards the end. Indeed, apart from the orchestral tutti in the last few bars, the last pages of the score are virtually for string quartet. The subtitle also refers to my own background as a philosophy graduate... The piece was commissioned by Philips Classics for Julian Lloyd Webber and is dedicated to him. The first performance was given by Julian Lloyd Webber and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by James Judd, 21 November 1995, Barbican Hall, London. Gavin Bryars/ Répertoire / Violoncelle et Orchestre

Par JARRELL MICHAEL. Composition works like an arborescent structure. At each ramification you choose a path, which depends on the whole dynamic of the whole piece. Doing this, you leave quite a lot of ideas and fragments behind. Nachlese is a german term already used by Goethe for the idea of 'reading again', referring to, commenting something... The idea of this cycle (Nachlese) is to come back to some musical ideas which I liked and found interesting, but were inappropriate in a different context and to develop them in new directions. When choosing a title I like it to refer to different techniques used in the piece, but also very directly to what is heard at some moments. For instance, in the first movement the orchestra 'emerges' from the very fast and nervous line played by the soloist and then, later, the 'climax' of this movement 'emerges' from the fast line then played by the orchestra. This piece is dedicated to Jean-Guihen Queyras and Thierry Fischer. / contemporain / Répertoire / Violoncelle et Orchestre

Original Version. Par TCHAIKOVSKI PIOTR ILITCH. Cet hommage de Tchaïkovski à l'excellent exemple admiré de Mozart et un défi pour le violoncelliste solo: ' Rokoko-variations ', dont le thème suit de près le style de musique du XVIIIe siècle, exige un maximum d'accomplir et brillance technique de la violoncelliste solo. Les variations sont connectées musicalement par orchestrales ritournelles qui, en matière de musique et de la substance, presque forment une deuxième séquence de variations./ Répertoire / Violoncelle et Orchestre