Dmitri Kabalevsky composed two cello concertos . He is primarily a pianist and composer for piano. [1] Kabalevsky has a career as a music educator, composer and member of the International Society for Music Education (ISME). [2] Kabalevsky's works have been regarded unfavorably by many because of his associations and allegiance with the Communist Party and is referred to by some as a "Soviet Composer", who was "self-serving, sly, and opportunistic to the extreme." [3] However, his compositions including the two cello concertos are used by various students around the world to learn technique. [3]
Kabalevsky was elected vice president of the ISME in 1968, during the 8th conference meeting held in Dijon, France. [2] He also had political prestige because of his efforts to reform music education in Soviet Russia. He was awarded the Order of Lenin for his contribution to Russian music education. [4] He also received a Medal of Honour from the Soviet Government "for his musical prowess." [5] [ relevant? ]
It is generally accepted that a composer's context has a great influence on their compositions. Kabalevsky's life in Russia during the time of the USSR and his career as a music teacher, for example, held particular influences on his works, particularly on his cello concertos. [6] [ failed verification ] During World War II, Russian and German governments had strict rules about the arts and what was appropriate and they generally preferred pieces that promoted patriotism for their country. As a result, Kabalevsky did not stray too far from traditional Russian music in his cello concertos. [3] [ failed verification ] The war and post-war context brought new inspiration to many composers including Kabalevsky, as seen by the number of famous compositions that came out of this time. This includes some of the works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Dmitri Shostakovich and Samuel Barber (amongst many others). [7] The cello itself gained particular attention during this postinter-war-war period, with the composition of several cello pieces such as Prokofiev's Cello Concerto and Shostakovich's pair of Cello Concertos, as well as Kabalevsky's own. [8]
The 20th century brought about a new style known as neoclassicism [9] to which Kabalevsky adhered to in many of his works, but particularly in his cello concertos. This style came about during the inter-war period, where innovation in music was less desirable and where tradition took precedence. [9] The neoclassical style was not rigid in traditional forms however, and there was some room for experimentation. [9] [ relevant? ]
Kabalevsky's Cello Concertos both follow traditional instrumentation, however, Cello Concerto No. 2 has a more innovative structure than No. 1 which does adhere to traditional concerto structure. [10]
Influences
Kabalevsky drew inspiration from and was influenced by a number of things such as his context of living in Soviet Russia, the neoclassic style that came out of the inter-war period and his esteemed career as a music educator and professional. Some snippets of Eastern Folk Songs also feature in his First Cello Concerto. [11]
Cello Concerto No. 1 is part of a trilogy of concertos by Kabalevsky and is considered to be the central piece of the trilogy. [11] The other pieces in the trilogy are his Violin Concerto, written in 1948, and Third Piano Concerto, written in 1952. [11] The three concertos were dedicated to students and young performers [11] and were written in a style that was simple enough for a student to play yet challenging enough to progress their musicality and technique. Cello Concerto No. 1 was premiered in 1949 by Sviatoslav Knushevitsky, a Russian cellist who was a student at the time. [11] He was accompanied by the Moscow Conservatory Youth Orchestra. [11]
The first cello concerto is in G minor.
Cello Concerto No. 1 follows the traditional structure of a concerto as it has three movements, or sections, which follows sonata form, of "fast-slow-fast". The first section is an Allegro, which means "fast and lively". It is followed by the second movement which is a Largo, meaning "slow" and was dedicated to fallen Russian soldiers in World Wars 1 and 2. The third movement is an Allegro molto, meaning "very swift". [11] [ failed verification ] As Kabalevsky's First Cello Concerto was written for students, it is not as technically challenging as Concerto No. 2. [11] It has as the features of a conventional concerto including a traditional structure and instrumentation. His use of melody and harmonic structure also followed tradition. Kabalevsky was generally praised by his audiences because of this and received a mostly positive reception to his neoclassic style. [7]
The Second Cello Concerto is part of a trilogy of more difficult and dramatic concertos. These pieces are generally considered to be written for music tutors rather than students, as his other concertos were. The other two pieces in the trilogy are Kabalevsky's first two piano concertos. Cello Concerto No. 2 was written in 1964 and premiered by Daniel Shafran that year. [12] Shafran had previously recorded the First Cello Concerto with Kabalevsky. [12]
The Second Cello Concerto is in C minor.
Cello Concerto No. 2 does not follow a traditional concerto structure like Concerto No. 1 as it has a slow-fast-slow pattern. This structure was influenced by Kabalevsky's teacher, Nikolai Myaskovsky. [12] The movements are as follows:
The movements of Cello Concerto No. 2 are played attacca , [12] meaning the piece continues without breaks between the movements. [14] This was an unusual feature of the concerto.
The instrumentation of the orchestral accompaniment to the solo cello is fairly standard, except for the inclusion of the alto saxophone.
Unlike Cello Concerto No. 1, Cello Concerto No. 2 is very raw in its expression and deviates from Soviet tradition. [3] This is unusual for Kabalevsky as this sort of style does not appear in many of his compositions, particularly those during the reign of the USSR.[ citation needed ]
Nikolai Myaskovsky held a great influence on Kabalevsky's Second Cello Concerto as he was Kabalevsky's music teacher at the Moscow Conservatory. [12] Myaskovsky was also awarded with the Order of Lenin and held the rank of General in the Russian Army during World War II. [15] [16] Although Myaskovsky had a good reputation with the Soviet Union to start with, his compositions began to drift away from what was acceptable and was accused of "injecting inharmonious music into the Soviet Educational System". [16] However, his generous teaching earned him the title of "the musical conscience of Moscow". [16] Myaskovsky experimented with modernist music particularly in harmony and form. [16] Kabalevsky likley drew inspiration from Myaskovsky's experimentation in his Cello Concerto No. 2. [12] This is evident in the changed form of the concerto, the movements structured as slow-fast-slow rather than fast-slow-fast. [17] It is also evident in Kabalevsky's more harrowing and emotional harmonies in the Second Cello Concerto.[ citation needed ]
A concerto is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typical three-movement structure, a slow movement preceded and followed by fast movements, became a standard from the early 18th century.
Robert Wilfred Levick Simpson was an English composer, as well as a long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster.
The Four Seasons is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year. These were composed around 1718−1720, when Vivaldi was the court chapel master in Mantua. They were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione.
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110, was written in three days.
Concert champêtre, FP 49, is a harpsichord concerto by Francis Poulenc, which also exists in a version for piano solo with very slight changes in the solo part.
Symphony No. 12 in D minor, Op. 112, subtitled The Year 1917, was composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1961. He dedicated it to the memory of Vladimir Lenin. Although the performance on October 1, 1961, by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky was billed as the official premiere, the actual first performance took place two hours earlier that same day in Kuybyshev by the Kuybyshev State Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Abram Stasevich.
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. After a period of comparative obscurity in the 25 years immediately after his death, he is now becoming recognized as one of the most significant Russian composers for the piano.
Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky, was a Russian and Soviet composer. He is sometimes referred to as the "Father of the Soviet Symphony". Myaskovsky was awarded the Stalin Prize five times.
Samuel Barber's Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra, Op. 22, completed on 27 November 1945, was the second of his three concertos. Barber was commissioned to write his cello concerto for Raya Garbousova, an expatriate Russian cellist, by Serge Koussevitzky on behalf of Garbusova and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Funds for the commission were supplied, however, by John Nicholas Brown, an amateur cellist and a trustee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The score is dedicated to John and Anne Brown. Barber was still on active duty with the U. S. Army at the time he received the commission, and before beginning work asked Garbousova to play through her repertoire for him so that he could understand her particular performing style and the resources of the instrument. Garbousova premiered it with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall, Boston, on 5 April 1946, followed by New York performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on 12 and 13 April. The concerto won Barber the New York Music Critics' Circle Award in 1947.
Lev Konstantinovich Knipper was a Soviet and Russian composer of partial German descent and an active OGPU/NKVD agent.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began his series of preserved piano concertos with four that he wrote at the age of 11, in Salzburg: K. 37 and 39–41. The autographs, all held by the Jagiellonian Library, Kraków, are dated by his father as having been completed in April and July of 1767. Although these works were long considered to be original, they are now known to be orchestrations of sonatas by various German virtuosi. The works on which the concertos are based were largely published in Paris, and presumably Mozart and his family became acquainted with them or their composers during their visit to Paris in 1763–64.
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 23 by Dmitry Kabalevsky was composed in 1935 and then revised in 1973. It is considered in some quarters to be the composer's masterpiece. Its first performance was given in Moscow on May 12, 1936. It consists of three movements:
A solo concerto is a musical form which features a single solo instrument with the melody line, accompanied by an orchestra. Traditionally, there are three movements in a solo concerto, consisting of a fast section, a slow and lyrical section, and then another fast section. However, there are many examples of concertos that do not conform to this plan.
The Piano Concerto No. 3 in D major, Op. 50 by Russian composer Dmitri Kabalevsky is one of three concertos written for and dedicated to young performers within the Soviet Union in 1952, and is sometimes performed as a student's first piano concerto. This sunny and tuneful piece manages to combine effective apparent pianistic pyrotechnics whilst keeping it within the range of ability of a keen student.
The Sonatas for cello and piano No. 4 in C major, Op. 102, No. 1, and No. 5 in D major, Op. 102, No. 2, by Ludwig van Beethoven were composed simultaneously in 1815 and published, by Simrock, in 1817 with a dedication to the Countess Marie von Erdődy, a close friend and confidante of Beethoven.
The Fantasia in F minor by Franz Schubert, D.940, for piano four hands, is one of Schubert's most important works for more than one pianist and one of his most important piano works altogether. He composed it in 1828, the last year of his life. A dedication to his former pupil Caroline Esterházy can only be found in the posthumous first edition, not in Schubert's autograph.
The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 3, by Nikolai Myaskovsky was written in 1908.
Milan Ristić was a Serbian composer, and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky was a Soviet composer, conductor, pianist and pedagogue of Russian gentry descent.
Symphony No. 0 by Russian composer Alfred Schnittke was composed in 1956–57 whilst Schnittke was a student at the Moscow Conservatory. It was given its first performance in 1957 by the Moscow Conservatory Symphony Orchestra conducted by Algis Zhiuratis. Present at the premiere were Dmitri Shostakovich and Dmitry Kabalevsky.