New love

I recently stumbled across the cello concerto by Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000) and have been fascinated by it ever since. It was written for cello, wind band, and classical guitar.

I saw it described here as "a pioneering work of jazz-rock-classical-marching band fusion," which is about right. I love the way Gulda created a melting pot of styles, plus the audacity of his sticking a solo cello in front of a wind band and drum kit, and making it all somehow hang together. He also wrote some beautiful music for the cello.

The first movement (Overture) starts out very rock 'n' roll; here's a great performance by Gautier Capuçon. Note that I'm having trouble getting these videos to play today, and this first link may actually go automatically to the rest of the concerto:

Gulda Concerto First Movement (Overture)

Here's Capuçon playing the second movement (Idyll), which has whiffs of Dvořák (to my ear) and maybe even Mahler (I believe this link does go on to the next movement):

Gulda Concerto Second Movement (Idyll)

And here's Heinrich Schiff, for whom this piece was originally written, tearing up the last three movements (Cadenza, Menuet, Finale) with the composer conducting; unfortunately, the very end is cut off in this video:



After hearing this playing in my head for about a week, I broke down and ordered the music and a recording. It will be fun to play around with it.