ELGAR'S CELLO CONCERTO. Kian Soltani and Jakub Przybycień

Repertoire

Edward Elgar: Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto in E, Op. 85 (1919) 32′
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E flat, Op. 93 (1953) 55′

ARTISTS

Kian Soltani, cello
Jakub Przybycień, conductor
Barcelona Symphony Orchestra (OBC)

Programme

Unavoidable linked to the charismatic Jacqueline du Pré, who has left her version of the work to posterity, Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor opens with the famous recitative for the solo cello, at the forefront of the dramatic action. It unapologetically highlights the strength shown by vulnerability itself, in a work supported through the leading role -in this case, the internationally famous Austrian virtuoso Kian Soltani- who, fuelled through dialogues with the orchestra, traces a kind of itinerary through one’s emotional life.

The alternating fervour and subtleness is once again supported by a very different language to that of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10. A work that appeared the same year in which Stalin died, and which was to mark a change in the regard in which the Russian composer was held (becoming a suspect to the regime after having been placed in a high position as a people’s artist). Discreetly distant from his previous works, the symphony -in the words of unforgettable violinist David Oistrakh- stands out through a force that “lies in the great dramatic effect, the intensity of conflicts, and the beautiful property of its language”.