Stanford: Cello Concerto in D Minor

This edition presents Charles Villiers Stanford’s Cello Concerto in D Minor in print for the first time, both in full score and in piano reduction. This is the most important and substantial cello concerto by a British composer of the late nineteenth century. It displays the unique mix of melodious inventiveness and technical rigor that ensured Stanford’s reputation as a first-rate composer. As one of Stanford’s first significant works, it shows the fruits of his training in Germany in the circle of Schumann and Brahms. It is a virtuosic showpiece that benefited from the input of the great German cellist Robert Hausmann, who also later inspired Brahms’s double concerto. The concerto’s three movements range from an inventive essay in sonata form, through a lyrical slow movement incorporating a section of recitative, to a joyously folksy set of variations in a rondo style. This is a remarkable work by a young up-and-coming composer of the first rank.