# Cello Concerto (Elgar)
The Cello Concerto in [E minor](https://www.edgepedia.org/e-minor), Op. 85, is a concerto for solo cello and orchestra in four movements by the English composer [Edward Elgar](https://www.edgepedia.org/edward-elgar), written in 1918 and 1919 and first performed on 27 October 1919 at [Queen's Hall](https://www.edgepedia.org/queens-hall), London, with the composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Felix Salmond as soloist.[1](https://www.elgar.org/3cellcon.htm) • [2](https://www.bso.org/works/elgar-cello-concerto) It was the last full-scale orchestral work Elgar completed, and it has become one of the two cello concertos performed most often, alongside Dvořák's.[3](https://www.laphil.com/works/cello-concerto) • [1](https://www.elgar.org/3cellcon.htm)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Key and catalog | E minor, Op. 85[1](https://www.elgar.org/3cellcon.htm) |
| Structure | Four movements: Adagio/Moderato; Lento/Allegro molto; Adagio; Allegro/Moderato/Allegro, ma non troppo[1](https://www.elgar.org/3cellcon.htm) |
| Length | About 30 minutes[1](https://www.elgar.org/3cellcon.htm) |
| Composition | Opening theme sketched 23 March 1918 after a tonsillectomy; concentrated work from July 1918; completed 3 August 1919[2](https://www.bso.org/works/elgar-cello-concerto) |
| Premiere | 27 October 1919, Queen's Hall, London; composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, Felix Salmond soloist[2](https://www.bso.org/works/elgar-cello-concerto) |
| Dedication | Sir Sidney and Lady Frances Colvin, friends of the Elgars[1](https://www.elgar.org/3cellcon.htm) |
| Orchestration | Piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, strings, and solo cello[2](https://www.bso.org/works/elgar-cello-concerto) |
## Composition
Elgar had written little sustained music during the first four years of the war, apart from *The Spirit of England*, a setting of three wartime poems by Laurence Binyon; he told his friend Sir Sidney Colvin, "I cannot do any real work with the awful shadow over us."[4](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm) In March 1918 he entered a London nursing home for a tonsillectomy, and, according to his daughter Carice, he woke one morning after the operation and asked for pencil and paper to write down the opening theme of the concerto, a melody in 9/8 time.[4](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm) The Boston Symphony Orchestra's program note dates this sketch to 23 March 1918 and says concentrated work began that July.[2](https://www.bso.org/works/elgar-cello-concerto)
**Brinkwells.** From May 1918 the Elgars lived at Brinkwells, a thatched cottage near Fittleworth in Sussex, where Elgar composed three chamber works in a new, more concise style: the Violin Sonata, the Piano Quintet, and the String Quartet.[4](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm) • [5](https://www.bhso.org.uk/work/elgar-cello-concerto-2/) All three were premièred in May 1919, by which time Elgar had decided to use the 9/8 melody in a concerto for cello and orchestra.[4](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm) On 2 June, his sixty-second birthday, the conductor Landon Ronald visited and heard long passages played on the piano; three days later Felix Salmond came to try the work on the cello.[4](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm) Elgar completed the concerto on 3 August 1919.[2](https://www.bso.org/works/elgar-cello-concerto) The sketches have been lost, so its development is traced through letters and diaries.[4](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm)
## The premiere and its reception
The first performance took place on 27 October 1919 at Queen's Hall, London, with Elgar conducting the [London Symphony Orchestra](https://www.edgepedia.org/london-symphony-orchestra) and Salmond as soloist.[2](https://www.bso.org/works/elgar-cello-concerto) Rehearsal time had been inadequate, and the performance was ragged. The critic Ernest Newman complained about the playing but praised the work itself: "The work itself is lovely stuff, very simple - that pregnant simplicity that has come upon Elgar's music in the last couple of years, but with a profound wisdom and beauty underlying its simplicity ... a fine spirit's lifelong wistful brooding upon the loveliness of earth."[4](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm) The premiere is generally described as a failure caused by insufficient rehearsal, and the work remained on the margins of the cello repertoire for decades afterward.[5](https://www.bhso.org.uk/work/elgar-cello-concerto-2/) • [6](https://www.classical-music.com/features/recordings/elgar-cello-concerto-2)
A footnote to the evening: one of the orchestral players was the nineteen-year-old John Barbirolli, whose 1965 recording of the concerto with [Jacqueline du Pré](https://www.edgepedia.org/jacqueline-du-pre) would later be hailed by many as its definitive interpretation.[4](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm)
## Musical character
Unlike the traditional three-movement concerto, the work has four movements, which the [Boston Symphony Orchestra](https://www.edgepedia.org/boston-symphony-orchestra)'s note attributes to a desire for diversity and contrast rather than length and weight.[2](https://www.bso.org/works/elgar-cello-concerto) It opens with a lengthy, largely unaccompanied cello recitative that melts into a gentle first theme taken by the violas, before a central section in [E major](https://www.edgepedia.org/e-major); the movement is in ternary form.[7](https://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/file/2017/07/Exeter-prog-final-low-res.pdf) The Los Angeles Philharmonic's note describes the opening solo passage as marked *Nobilmente*, an assertive but morose gesture that returns briefly in the second movement and at the end of the concerto.[3](https://www.laphil.com/works/cello-concerto) The third movement sustains one long melody throughout, and the finale, the longest movement, pursues a sunnier course until a cadenza leads to a restatement of the first movement's recitative before an abrupt *fortissimo* conclusion.[7](https://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/file/2017/07/Exeter-prog-final-low-res.pdf)
Despite a large orchestra, Elgar scores it so that the soloist is never obscured.[5](https://www.bhso.org.uk/work/elgar-cello-concerto-2/) Commentators have read the work as a lament for a world destroyed by the First World War; Elgar himself, in June 1919, called it "a real large work & I think good & alive," and he wrote "RIP" on its final page.[1](https://www.elgar.org/3cellcon.htm) • [8](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/seattle-symphony-september_2016_encore.pdf) • [6](https://www.classical-music.com/features/recordings/elgar-cello-concerto-2)
## Later history and recordings
Elgar recorded the concerto twice, in 1919 and again in 1928, and during his final illness in 1933 he hummed its first theme to a friend, saying, "If ever after I'm dead you hear someone whistling this tune on the Malvern Hills, don't be alarmed. It's only me."[4](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm) He completed no further major work in the fifteen years he lived after the premiere.[6](https://www.classical-music.com/features/recordings/elgar-cello-concerto-2)
**The du Pré recording.** The work's rise to popularity is closely tied to Jacqueline du Pré, who performed it at the Proms in 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1965 and made a recording with Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra in 1965, at the age of 20.[9](https://bbclatestnews.pages.dev/music/articles/c57b9049-7871-4bdf-807f-0510841b0997) Reviewers of that disc praised the passion and depth of her interpretation, one calling it "the standard version of the concerto, with or without critical acclaim."[10](https://people.csail.mit.edu/jsolomon/assets/dupre.pdf) [Pablo Casals](https://www.edgepedia.org/pablo-casals), Paul Tortelier, Yo-Yo Ma, and du Pré are among the cellists who have made landmark recordings, and new interpretations continue to appear.[1](https://www.elgar.org/3cellcon.htm)
## References
1. [Elgar - His Music: Cello Concerto - Introduction, elgar.org](https://www.elgar.org/3cellcon.htm)
2. [Elgar - Cello Concerto, Boston Symphony Orchestra](https://www.bso.org/works/elgar-cello-concerto)
3. [Cello Concerto, Los Angeles Philharmonic](https://www.laphil.com/works/cello-concerto)
4. [Elgar - His Music: Cello Concerto - Creating a Classic, elgar.org](https://www.elgar.org/3cello-c.htm)
5. [Elgar: Cello Concerto, Burgess Hill Symphony Orchestra](https://www.bhso.org.uk/work/elgar-cello-concerto-2/)
6. [Elegy for a vanished world: the timeless mystery of Elgar's Cello Concerto, Classical Music](https://www.classical-music.com/features/recordings/elgar-cello-concerto-2)
7. [Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934), Exeter College, Oxford programme note](https://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk/file/2017/07/Exeter-prog-final-low-res.pdf)
8. [Edward Elgar, Encore Spotlight / Seattle Symphony program notes](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/seattle-symphony-september_2016_encore.pdf)
9. [Elgar's Cello Concerto: from a flop to a Proms classic, BBC Music](https://bbclatestnews.pages.dev/music/articles/c57b9049-7871-4bdf-807f-0510841b0997)
10. [Justin Solomon, accounts of Jacqueline du Pré's 1965 recording session](https://people.csail.mit.edu/jsolomon/assets/dupre.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical works and recordings › Compositions and songs › Concertos and soloist-with-orchestra works*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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