Another month, another coupling of the Elgar concerto with another extremely contemporary cello concerto, this time by the young New Zealand composer, Gareth Farr. While I don’t consider it quite the equal of Anna Klein’s masterpiece, the creative and emotional resonance between the two works featured here is much stronger.
Farr’s concerto, composed almost a hundred years after the Elgar (1917), was also written with the First World War in mind, though more specifically dedicated to the memory of three of his great-uncles, who died in the conflict, and are buried in France and in Belgium. The work’s title Chemin des Dames (Pathway of Women) was the name of one of these battle sites but was employed here by the composer to convey the impact of loss on...
Comments
Log in to join the conversation.