Cello Concerto No. 1 'River'
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Orchestra
- Composed
- 1997
- Duration
- 22'
- Publisher
- Edition Peters (Peters Edition Ltd)
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About this piece
Beamish's first cello concerto (1997, about 22 minutes) was commissioned by Robert Cohen and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, who premiered it in London under Sir Neville Marriner. Its four movements, the first three played without a break, take their titles and imagery from Ted Hughes's River poems: March Watercolour, The Kingfisher, Low Water and All Night a Music Like a Needle Sewing. Cohen suggested variation form, and Beamish, who had lived for seven years beside the Endrick Water in Scotland, treats a stretch of river as a natural set of variations, with each movement developing the same material differently. Cohen recorded it for BIS with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Ola Rudner.
Technical overview
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