The piece has a thrilling ending that requires quick fingers and brings the cellist to the highest A on the cello before a dramatic finish on the low tonic F. The movement offers plenty of opportunities to practice the thumb position!Ī gorgeous brooding melody in the middle offers an opportunity for dialogue with the orchestral winds.Īnd the cadenza is written out with plenty of double stops to keep the fingers busy. The Vivace molto movement opens with a joyful melody that leaps up the cello. The melodies have a beautiful simplicity… However, there are no double stops or awkward passages. (The movement ends on a D above the treble clef staff). For sure, a cellist needs to be comfortable shifting and performing in all ranges of the cello. The Andante movement is the most accessible to play of the concerto. Whatever the reason, I feel the movement has beautifully mournful melodies so it is included in my edition. Perhaps she just preferred the version that was more joyful. Or as another cellist mentioned, there are similar themes in the middle of the Lento and Andante movements. Perhaps she didn’t finish because it was too personal. Perhaps at its premier, the cellist didn’t want to perform such a tragic movement. There is a mournful funeral march rhythm in the piano accompaniment. This movement is the most tragic of the concerto. As mentioned before, the piece was written in 1882, the same year as her husband’s death. One can only speculate as to why the orchestration was not completed like the other movements. Jäell did include a complete piano part for the movement and a few pages of the beginnings of an orchestration. The Lento movement which I included in the piano and cello arrangement was never fully orchestrated by the composer and was therefore not included in the first recording of the piece. There are soaring melodies…ĭescending arpeggio patterns a la Saint-Saëns…. The concerto offers many opportunities for a budding cellist to hone their skills.
The undulating arpeggios rise and fall like waves on an ocean culminating on a high F two octaves above middle C.
(Popper’s 40 Etudes were published in 1901). You can see the probable influence of her cello mentor in a descending arpeggio passage that almost sounds like something David Popper might have written. The rise and fall of the passage reminds me of a sunrise at sea. The Allegro moderato movement begins with the main melody introduced by the orchestra cellos. Both the Jäell and Dvořák concertos make similar use of horns in the orchestration and the folk like melodies. The Dvořák cello concerto was written 14 years later in 1894. However, It is not known if she consulted Saint-Saëns on this concerto. Marie Jäell studied composition with Saint-Saëns who wrote his own A Minor cello concerto ten years prior in 1872. The simple harmonic structure gives the piece a charming, folk song like quality. One may assume that he helped her understand cello technique as the work is in a very comfortable key for cello (F Major) and lies well under the fingers. Marie Jäell wrote the concerto in 1882 and dedicated the concerto to the cellist Jules Desart who performed the premier. The Jäell concerto is the first known cello concerto written by a woman. A friend helped me obtain them so that I could prepare a score for cello and piano. I discovered it was unpublished but the manuscripts were housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg. I immediately fell in love with it’s infectious melodies and knew I wanted to be able to play the piece.
Several years back I discovered a recording of a beautiful concerto written by the French pianist and composer, Marie Jäell.
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