Cello Concerto

The Cello Concerto Op. 58 is a kind of Elgar's goodbye song to the old world, destroyed in the First World War. As many people of his generation, Elgar also felt that this war demolished the beautiful, magic world of Romantic Europe. And as many of us, Elgar misses the past and refuses to let go. In the first movement, you can feel the cello's bitter cry mourning the world that will no longer be. The orchestra gently strokes its sounds, as if trying to calm it down. Cheering attempts keep coming up all the time, and on the other side - the dark shadow of the threat.

The life of the gifted cellist Jacqueline du Pré, whose performance of this work is considered particularly profound and emotional, were linked to Elgar's cello concerto, as if it told the story of a beautiful, talented musician gradually covered by and shadowed by a terrible illness, till the bitter end. A movie from 1998, "Hilary and Jackie", was dedicated to her touching real-life story.