Concerto for cello and orchestra (1975, rev. 1976-1978)

Duration:

26 min.

 

Publisher:

Edition Wilhelm Hansen

 

Instruments:

2-2-2-2, 2-2-2-0, timpani, percussion (4),

celesta, 2 harps, mandoline, soprano,

strings (10-8-6-6-4)

 

First performance of the original version:

11/2 1976 in Aarhus Kongreshus during

Young Nordic Music Festival

Ulla Rönnborg (cello)

Aarhus Symphony Orchestra

Jorma Panula, conductor

First performance of the revised version:

21/1 1979 in TivoliConcert Hall,

Copenhagen

Gerhard Hamann (cello)

Danish Radio Sinfonietta (Danish Radio

Concert Orchestra)

Michael Schønwandt, conductor

 

Recording:

Erling Bløndal Bengtsson

Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Harold Farberman

...while Erik Hojsgaard’s Cello Concerto was simply the most sheerly beautiful piece in the festival. Indeed, its trailing tendrils were of an almost Szymanowskian decadence, though with an airier harmony, a more open, even at times skeletal orchestration.

...There were lovely touches of invention, like the occasional evaporation of the harmony to leave fifths in the horns or the late emergence of a soprano voice for two floating wordless phrases, and the form of the work was also novel and successful, a massive cadential climax being the prelude not to the end but to a whole new meandering journey in quieter tones.

Paul Griffiths, The Times