VFJO / GÁBOR TAKÁCS-NAGY / ANASTASIA KOBEKINA

The Rococo Variations have a special place in the cello concerto landscape. This is undoubtedly due to its deliberately nostalgic form, which owes so much to Mozart, to whom Tchaikovsky was truly devoted. It is also undoubtedly because, despite this relative aesthetic unity, the composer takes us on a journey through an exceptional variety of styles, with the extremely busy soloist changing masks, so to speak, at each corner of the score – these role changes being, according to the cellists, the main difficulty of the work, far ahead of the famous octaves of the final variation.  

Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony is nicknamed ‘Czechoslovakian’, as an unintentional nod to the famous ‘New World’ symphony that will follow it. Far removed from the storms of the soul often associated with late romanticism, this work is for Dvořák that of meditative calm, with the rigour of epic exaltation; it is a profoundly positive work, as its reassuring key of G Major attests. Borrowing heavily from the rhapsody genre, the Finale unfolds from bacchanalian tutti rhythms to soloistic episodes, including an intervention by the solo flute that Brahms would not have disliked.