Wilhelm Elsner (1826-84) was a celebrated cellist and Professor of Music at Dublin Academy of Music (Later the Royal Irish Academy of Music). He was principle Violoncellist of the Philharmonic & Antient Concerts, Dublin by 1857. Jeremy Dibble (Liner Notes Hyperion CDA67859) reminds the listener that although Stanford did not study at the RIAM, he did know members of the staff, including Elsner. Sadly, Wilhelm Elsner drowned in the Irish Sea on 15 July 1884, when he fell overboard from the SS Lily bound from Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead. He was travelling to Germany with his wife for a holiday. His body later washed ashore at Port Erin Bay, Isle of Man.
At least two numbers were written by Stanford for Elsner. The first was a song, O Domine Jesu which was given in Dublin on 23 September 1870. The soloist was the operatic soprano, Thérèse Tietjens, with the cellist playing an obligato part. The second was the present Rondo in F major.
Dibble (2024, p.44) notes that this Rondo belongs “to the genre of short, independent bravura pieces by those such as Mendelssohn, Moscheles, Hummel, Litolff, Weber, Herz and Thalberg that flourished in the nineteenth century.”
The piece opens with a slow
introduction, typical of the era. The work is formally correct with an ABACADA
design. Dibble notes the “deft touches” such as the “central lyrical episode
which incorporates a cadenza” and the final episode displays a “quasi-operatic
interlude before launching into the coda.” This is marked ‘come recitativo.’
Paul Rodmell, (2002, p.41) states that in the Rondo, “Stanford’s approach to harmony is based on a classical simplicity with modulations to the predictable keys of D minor and C major, and this lack of complication is emphasised by a strong preference for four-and eight-bar phrases, and clearly delineated closures.” He insists that “These two factors in particular imbue [the work] with a simplicity almost as if one could see the cogs turning in Stanford’s mind, as he employed rules of form, phrasing and harmony which were learnt and generally understood but then applied without question.” This criticism is a little harsh. The Rondo may not be an early masterpiece, but it progresses well, offers interesting melodies, and is surprisingly subtle for a young composer.
In 2011, Hyperion records issued a remarkable album in The Romantic Cello Concerto series. This CD featured Stanford’s Cello Concerto in D minor, the Irish Rhapsody No.3, op.137, the late Ballata and Ballabile, op.160 and the Rondo in F major. The cellist was Gemma Rosefield, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Andrew Manze.
Andrew Achenbach (The Gramophone, December 2011, p.66) considered that the entire album was “Another Hyperion winner!” As for the Rondo, he stated that it was a “conspicuously precocious achievement for a 16-year-old.”
It is not known if the Rondo was performed prior to the Hyperion recording. However, Chirstopher Howell (MusicWeb International, 12 March 2012) suggests that if “Dubliners of the day did hear it, they might have found it a little disconcerting. Each return of the rondo comes, not so much with classical inevitability, but slyly creeping in after an episode that has attempted to lead elsewhere. Today this is all rather disarming.”
So perhaps the piece is not as textbook
as Paul Rodmell suggests.
Bibliography:
Dibble, Jeremy, Charles Villiers Stanford: Man and
Musician, revised and expanded edition, Boydell Press, 2002, 2024.
Rodmell, Paul, Charles Villiers Stanford, Ashgate, Aldershot,
2002.
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