guido

Thanks for this! It sunds great... can't wait for the real recording. Those chords at the beginning will sound magnificent on real instruments. Whatever happened to that real recording that someone promised?

Hi. Though I am very much a fan of John William's film scores, I really do get far more enjoyment from the concert pieces - in fact the cello concerto and Heartwood are two of my all time favourite classical pieces. I am a cellist myself, but this preference aside, I really do believe that these two pieces represent the height of his compositional talent, and both are major new contributions to the repertoire of the cello. Perhaps they are especially good because of John's very close relationship to the dedicatee - Yo-Yo Ma and that cellists supreme artistry. I have approximately 320 cello concertos and concertante pieces on record and these two pieces rank among the my very favourite. The cello concerto is very clearly influenced by the Walton cello concerto, the Britten Cello Symphony (especially the Scherzo) and Barber's fantastic cello concerto - all three of which are also amongst the finest works for the instrument of the last century. Much to my chagrin the music has not been published and despite my pleading with John's secretary via email (!) there are no plans to publish these two pieces (really anoying as almost all the other concertos have been published), though she did say that she had recieved a few other enquiries so hopefully if enough people ask John Williams will reconsider. I would like nothing more than to see the cello concerto and Heartwood published. Anyway, naturally I was very excited to hear about this new piece, so I just thought that I'd ask whether anyone on this board has a recording of this piece yet and if so could they PM me or email me at guidolmb (at) hotmail (dot) com ? Cheers! (P.S. I'm not sure which thread is more active so I have posted this response on the other Duo Concertante thread as well)