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Episode details

Radio 3,52 mins

Britten: Cello Symphony

Discovering Music

Available for over a year

Stephen Johnson visits Glasgow for an exploration of Benjamin Britten's Cello Symphony, with the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Scottish Symphony Orchestra and soloist, Tim Hugh, conducted by Takuo Yuasa. Written in 1963 for the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the premiere a year later, the piece is full of dark colours. It uses the bass sonorities of the orchestral texture: low strings, bassoons, tuba and bass drum, allowing the cello's tenor register to sing out of the mire. The piece has a four-movement symphonic structure, with the last two linked by a solo cello cadenza, which, Stephen argues, makes the piece more of a symphony than a cello concerto, as the composer suggests in the work's title.

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