A violoncello concerto is a concerto for solo violoncello with orchestra or, very occasionally, smaller groups of instruments. These pieces have been written from the time of Vivaldi and Tartini if not earlier, and continue to be written into the present day. There are extremely well-known examples from Joseph Haydn, Schumann, Dvoř k, Prokofiev, Elgar, Saint Sa ns' 2 concerti, Shostakovich no. 1 and Shostakovich no. 2, and an often-played one (of about a dozen he wrote) by Boccherini which has been rescued from its mangled edition by Gr tzmacher, but there are others in the standard repertoire and many others which are not.
There are also several often-played works not called concerto worth noting here, including Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, Bruch’s Kol Nidre, the Schelomo of Bloch, and the Elegy of Faur . Also Benjamin Britten's Cello symphony and George Enescu's sinfonia concertante which are longer, true, than some concerti. Also Frank Bridge's Oration but this is not played nearly so often! N.B. So the omission from this brief list of other concerti/concertante works is not meant to speak to their value...
The première of the celloconcerto was given by Felix Salmond on 27 October 1919 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer, at the Queen's Hall in London.
Priestley used the concerto in his 1948 play The Linden Tree in which the daughter of the play's main character, an aging professor of history who is under pressure to retire, is a cellist, and in Act II she practises the concerto offstage.
The best-loved performance of this piece is that by Jacqueline du Pré, whose recording of the piece in 1965 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli brought her international recognition.
The Solo Cello Suites of J S Bach are an early landmark in the repertoire, and a surprising one in many ways, because as an Italian instrument the cello was usually passed over by German composers in favour of the viola da gamba.
The vocal qualities of the new brighter cello made it ideal for the romantic concerto which expressed the conflict between the individual and society, but it wasn't until the time of the DvorakCelloConcerto that the instrument was taken up by composers.
Celloconcertos and sonatas became a standard task for a composer, and Mstislav Rostropovich was behind the writing of major works by Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Britten, who wrote three solo sonatas as well as a Cello Symphony.
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