Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra, Op. 35 (1925)
I. Allegro assai moderato
II. Agitato [10:30]
III. Adagio [13:58]
IV. Allegro vivace [21:29]
Frédéric Mottier, cello
The Forum Group
Fred Barth
The Cello Concerto was written for a competition sponsored by Schott Publishing Company. Toch composed it quickly, between October and November 1924, in good time for the competition in 1925 (he’d already won the 1924 competition with his Divertimento for Violin and cello). Dedicated to the cellist Maurits Frank it was premiered by Emanuel Feuermann in July 1925 and so popular was it that the cellist performed it about sixty times in Germany in the next eight years, with conductors such as Klemperer in Berlin and Monteux in Amsterdam. Scored for a chamber orchestra it features the soloist in a primus inter pares role in a work that is a microcosm of contemporary compositional technique. Metres are constantly changing and there is a weight of complex rhythmic difficulty. Whilst the four movements are very broadly classical in design this is no neo-classical jeux d’esprit. Instead it’s a tough, densely argued work the opening movement of which sets the scene for much that is to follow; quixotic harmonies and instrumentation; a novel role for the protagonist, a perplexing air of indistinctness until a solo horn announces a new direction and the movement ends in the cello taking up a romanticized theme. The rather galumphing scherzo (Sorcerer’s Apprentice meets Stravinsky) has a second subject announced by the horn in bold fashion encouraging a scurrying cello until, abruptly, the music seems to end in mid-air. The cello by contrast spins a long cantilena line in the Adagio, laden with an expressive depth that signals that this is the central point of the work and its heart beat. In the finale, which again broadly conforms to the classical formula, a stern figure threatens to turn into a fugato before first ominous percussion and ostinato strings drive the argument still further, embracing a crookedly humorous passage and decisive conclusion. --Jonathan Woolf
Art by Þorlákur Kristinsson
Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra, Op. 35 (1925)
I. Allegro assai moderato
II. Agitato [10:30]
III. Adagio [13:58]
IV. Allegro vivace [21:29]
Frédéric Mottier, cello
The Forum Group
Fred Barth
The Cello Concerto was written for a competition sponsored by Schott Publishing Company. Toch composed it quickly, between October and November 1924, in good time for the competition in 1925 (he’d already won the 1924 competition with his Divertimento for Violin and cello). Dedicated to the cellist Maurits Frank it was premiered by Emanuel Feuermann in July 1925 and so popular was it that the cellist performed it about sixty times in Germany in the next eight years, with conductors such as Klemperer in Berlin and Monteux in Amsterdam. Scored for a chamber orchestra it features the soloist in a primus inter pares role in a work that is a microcosm of contemporary compositional technique. Metres are constantly changing and there is a weight of complex rhythmic difficulty. Whilst the four movements are very broadly classical in design this is no neo-classical jeux d’esprit. Instead it’s a tough, densely argued work the opening movement of which sets the scene for much that is to follow; quixotic harmonies and instrumentation; a novel role for the protagonist, a perplexing air of indistinctness until a solo horn announces a new direction and the movement ends in the cello taking up a romanticized theme. The rather galumphing scherzo (Sorcerer’s Apprentice meets Stravinsky) has a second subject announced by the horn in bold fashion encouraging a scurrying cello until, abruptly, the music seems to end in mid-air. The cello by contrast spins a long cantilena line in the Adagio, laden with an expressive depth that signals that this is the central point of the work and its heart beat. In the finale, which again broadly conforms to the classical formula, a stern figure threatens to turn into a fugato before first ominous percussion and ostinato strings drive the argument still further, embracing a crookedly humorous passage and decisive conclusion. --Jonathan Woolf
Art by Þorlákur Kristinsson
