Édouard Lalo

Édouard Lalo

Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer.-Biography:Lalo was born in Lille , in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck...

 wrote his Cello Concerto

Violoncello concerto

A cello concerto is a concerto for solo cello with orchestra or, very occasionally, smaller groups of instruments....

 in D minor

D minor

D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. In the harmonic minor, the C is raised to C. Its key signature has one flat ....

in 1876, in collaboration with Parisian cellist Adolphe Fischer. The work was premiered the following year at the Cirque d'Hiver with Fischer as soloist.

Form

The concerto is written in three movements

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

:

1. Prelude
   Prelude (music)
   A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...
   
   , lento - Allegro maestoso
   Maestoso
   Maestoso is an Italian musical term and is used to direct performers to play a certain passage of music in a stately, dignified and majestic fashion or, it is used to describe music as such. The term is commonly used in relatively slow pieces; however, there are numerous examples - such as the...
   
   
2. Intermezzo
   Intermezzo
   In music, an intermezzo , in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work...
   
   , andantino con moto - Allegro presto - Andantino - Tempo I
3. Introduction
   Introduction (music)
   In music, the introduction is a passage or section which opens a movement or a separate piece. In popular music this is often abbreviated as intro...
   
   , andante - Allegro vivace

The first movement opens lento, then moves into an allegro maestoso, which continues throughout the rest of the movement. The opening has several measures of orchestral music before the solo cello enters with an ad lib theme that is played three times. This leads into the fast section, which features many fast and aggresive arpeggios, and quick and relentless sixteenth notes.

The second movement starts with a slow andantino section, then progresses into a lively allegro presto. The music returns to the andantino tempo. Before the end of the second movement, the allegro presto returns. The solo cello ends on pizzicato

Pizzicato

Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of stringed instrument....

 chords with the orchestra.

The solo cello opens with a slow andante in the third movement; the orchestra joins in and then takes over. The music becomes a lively rondo marked allegro vivace, the cello solo returning with a forceful entry into the rondo theme. The main theme is based on a D major scale and a quick fall down. The rest of the movement continues at allegro vivace tempo. The solo cello ends with a very fast scale that lands on a C sharp trill that resolves to the tonic.

Instrumentation

Scored for 2 flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, 2 oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, 2 clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s, 2 bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s, 4 horn

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

s, 2 trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s, 3 trombone

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

s, timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

 and strings

String section

The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...

.

External links

• Free recording by the Columbia University Orchestra.