Soundtracks:
Hilary and Jackie
Lorenzo's Oil
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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.
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