Tovey, Donald Francis

Donald Francis Tovey – Cello Concerto in C major, Op. 40 (1933-34)

(b. Eton/Berkshire, 17 July 1875 – d. Edinburgh, 10 July 1940)

I Allegro moderato (p. 1) – Solo cadenza (p. 46)
II Andante maestoso (p. 55) – Adagio (p. 58) – Stringendo molto al Tempo primo (p. 62)
III Intermezzo. Andante innocente, con moto quasi Allegretto (p. 67)
IV Rondo. Allegro (p. 70) – Solo cadenza (p. 98)

Preface
As a composer, Donald Francis Tovey was a highly respected outsider in his native Britain. He received his first training from Sophie Weisse (1852-1945), who stood by him throughout his life, actively supported him, and financed the printing of many of his works. Stylistically and in his mastery of large-scale form already fully formed and largely matured with his first Piano Trio, Op. 1, dedicated to his teacher Hubert Parry (1848-1918), he wrote such weighty works from the outset, in continuation of a tradition clearly drawing from Beethoven and Brahms, that his music was quickly subjected to the prejudice of “Teutonic heavyweight” in England, which made him a particularly unfashionable figure in the long term, especially when the First World War viciously divided cultures. Thereafter, Tovey devoted most of his time to his teaching and orchestral education activities in Edinburgh, as well as to popular educational introductions to the great classical works (Essays in Musical Analysis), for which he is best known today as perhaps his country’s most gifted music writer. It was also left to him to realize, in 1932, the first truly adequate completion of the unfinished final fugue from Bach’s Art of Fugue. He composed comparatively little in his later years, and among the late compositions, the present Cello Concerto is the all-superior major work.

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