CARL STAMITZ: who will record his cello concertos??

[Guest]

I am a great fan of this so underrated composer, contemporary of Mozart and to him well known (as Mozart's letters to his father show) his cello concertos 1-3 are enough for me to rank him amongst my top 10 composers of all time!!
I am proud to own a Naxos recording with cellist Christian Benda, but why, oh, why do other cellists so rarely perform the concertos?
Any cellist out there that would consider recording them?


Here's a link to of his Concerto n 1, 2nd movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irsDrwoa4Xw

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks for the tip, and the link!

I seem to have quite a few Naxos cello concerto recordings, but these are new to me. Maria Kliegel is one of the Naxos house cellists that I particularly admire (Shostakovich, Haydn, Dvorak) but I also have a pile of Vivaldis with R Wallfisch

[Dave2002]

I am a great fan of this so underrated composer, contemporary of Mozart and to him well known (as Mozart's letters to his father show) his cello concertos 1-3 are enough for me to rank him amongst my top 10 composers of all time!!
I am proud to own a Naxos recording with cellist Christian Benda, but why, oh, why do other cellists so rarely perform the concertos?
Any cellist out there that would consider recording them?


Here's a link to of his Concerto n 1, 2nd movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irsDrwoa4Xw

Your avatar suggests that you might yourself play them.

[cocolinmichela]

Your avatar suggests that you might yourself play them.

Ha, well, I play the 1st concerto (2nd movement) but I am NOWHERE NEAR the level required to record them!! Can't afford to pay the orchestra either!

[cocolinmichela]

Thanks for the tip, and the link!

I seem to have quite a few Naxos cello concerto recordings, but these are new to me. Maria Kliegel is one of the Naxos house cellists that I particularly admire (Shostakovich, Haydn, Dvorak) but I also have a pile of Vivaldis with R Wallfisch

Ah, you mentioned Naxos recordings...I have quite a few of them, too, all pretty good for a budget label. If you like cello works other than concertos, there is a wonderful Naxos recording coming out on the 30th September with Julian Lloyd Webber and his wife Jiaxin called "A Tale of Two Cellos", music from Monteverdi to Part, quite a few gems there (Piazzolla and Hahn to mention a few) and at a ridiculous price! If a renowned artist with more than 40 years in the music industry like Julian chose to record for Naxos it has to be a good label!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cellos-Julian-Lloyd-Webber-Jiaxin/dp/B00DHHRG46

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

thank you for arousing my curiosity; i found this an mp3 from Supraphon; and this the commentary in that last link is rather dismissive of bread and butter Mannheim school music and then goes on to give a mouth watering descritptionof the Cello Concerto in G Maj! Just like the characterisation as baroque wallpaper of the music of Telemann or Vivaldi!

[cocolinmichela]

thank you for arousing my curiosity; i found this an mp3 from Supraphon; and this the commentary in that last link is rather dismissive of bread and butter Mannheim school music and then goes on to give a mouth watering descritptionof the Cello Concerto in G Maj! Just like the characterisation as baroque wallpaper of the music of Telemann or Vivaldi!

Oh, so much more than wallpaper, not Baroque either, more classical to my ears. The Stamitz cello concertos are, to me, what Mozart did not compose for solo cello.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

indeed .... i intended to convey my view that dismissing the works of such baroque masters as wallpaper was a crime, just as the rather aloof comments on AM about Stamitz were also very unhelpful ... i look forward to listening to them when my emusic monthly fix comes around again!

[Roehre]

Oh, so much more than wallpaper, not Baroque either, more classical to my ears. The Stamitz cello concertos are, to me, what Mozart did not compose for solo cello.

I only know his 2nd concerto (in A) quite well, and likely dating from the mid 1780s it's got certainly classical contours, comparable with the Haydn and Mozart concertos.

As far as Mozart is concerned: there are some examples how a mozartian cello concerto might have sounded:

-there is a fragment -a nearly complete slow-movement that is- of a cello sonata: KV374g/App.46 from 1783.
-an unfinished Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and cello in A KV320e/App.104 from 1779, of which the 1st mvt has been sketched (and as Mozart used to do: main parts orchestrated in an orchestral score) upto the re-exposition.

Both fragments are easiliy made playable and executable, and that has happened: Eric Smith (1989) for the former and Schumacher/Bianchi (1975) for the latter.

Btw: for a Beethovenian example, apart from the Triple concerto: the cello-solo in Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus op.43.