Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra in A Minor, Op. 10 (score)

The Croatian cellist, composer and educator Juro Tkalčić is one of the major Croatian musicians born in the 1870s. Although in his time in international circles too he was renowned as a cello virtuoso, Croatian musicology has still not devoted to Tklačić the attention he certainly merits. The Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra in A minor, op. 10, is referred to by Milan Nagy, distinguished Croatian cellist, music teacher and expert in Tklačić’s oeuvre, as a “major Tkalčić work”, pronouncing it the “first Croatian concerto for cello and orchestra”. Although Tkalčić also wrote other compositions for cello and orchestra, the Variations on a Međimurje theme Sad Rose and the pieces Come to the Kolo and In the Mist, the Concerto is in terms of duration, complexity of facture and the considerable technical demands it makes on the soloist certainly the composer’s chef d’oeuvre. Tkalčić dedicated it to his wife; the time it was written is said at the end of the autograph of the score to have been “April-May 1922”. In terms of formal structure, stylistic and harmonic idiom, the composition is aligned with the models of its kind – the late Romantic concerto for cello as composed for example by Antonín Dvořák, David Popper and Édouard Lalo although Tkalčić’s Concerto does offer some distinctive and original approaches Apart from its suggestive and striking themes, its dramatic and exciting musical landscapes, short flare-ups of agitation and its wonderful meditative and lyrical passages, in this successful work Tkalčić opens up a space for the soloists, whom he gives a number of opportunities to showcase their virtuoso cello playing. The Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra op. 10 by Juro Tkalčić was first performed on October 14, 1924, in the Croatian Music Institute, the composer taking the solo part. Tkalčić alas performed the Concerto in Warsaw on December 19, 1940, and later in Belgrade, on December 10, 1932, in the Kolarac Foundation Hall.