Suite for Cello, Op. 72
- Instrumentation
- Cello
- Composed
- 1964
- Duration
- 21'
- Publisher
- Faber Music
Purchase or download
About this piece
The first of Britten's three unaccompanied suites for Rostropovich, composed at the end of 1964 and published in 1966. Nine movements play without a pause, with a recurring 'Canto' returning four times as a refrain between a fugue, a lament, a pizzicato serenade, a march, a drone-based 'Bordone' and a closing moto perpetuo. Noel Goodwin wrote in the Daily Express after the premiere that 'few finer works than this for solo cello have been written since Bach'. Faber sells all three suites together in one 56-page volume (also as a PDF download).
Technical overview
Demands sustained polyphonic playing (Fuga, Bordone drones), an all-pizzicato Serenata and a Presto perpetuum mobile; the recurring Canto requires a singing sostenuto line on the unaccompanied instrument.