Victor Herbert: Cello Concertos Nos. 1 & 2; Irish Rhapsody—Mark Kosower, cello; Ulster Orchestra/JoAnn Falletta (Naxos 573517)
Here’s the latest from Cleveland Orchestra Principal Cellist Mark Kosower! Irish-born Victor Herbert was one of the most celebrated names in American music in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries. We know him mostly as a composer of light operas, but he was in his day a cellist, conductor and recording artist. His two cello concertos are full of gracious melodies, the First in D major having a song-like slow movement and a spirited polonaise finale that earned praise at its 1885 premiere in Stuttgart. The Second Concerto in E minor, scored for a large orchestra, is more tightly constructed and it inspired Herbert’s boss at the National Conservatory in New York, one Antonín Dvorák, to write his own Concerto in B minor, a work that is regarded by some as the Czech master’s greatest composition.
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