Fitzenhagen: Cello Concertos (Hyperion Romantic Cello Concerto 7)

Featuring

Alban Gerhardt
Stefan Blunier
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Wilhelm Fitzenhagen
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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Composer Biography

Fitzenhagen was a gifted pupil of Friedrich Grützmacher, a respected virtuoso cellist known for assembling 'Boccherini's Cello Concerto' from several works.

Critical Reception

Despite Tchaikovsky's original version of the Rococo Variations being published in 1956, Fitzenhagen's heavily revised version continues to be performed and remains his most enduring musical legacy.

Composition History

Tchaikovsky dedicated his Variations on a Rococo theme, Op 33, to Fitzenhagen, who then made extensive revisions to the work.

Composer Biography

Fitzenhagen became a professor of cello at the Imperial Conservatoire in Moscow after declining an offer from Liszt to join the Weimar orchestra.

Performer Biography

Alban Gerhardt, the cellist on this recording, plays a Matteo Gofriller cello dating from 1710.

Composition History

Fitzenhagen's revisions to Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations were so drastic they included cutting an entire variation and reordering others, leading to the publisher exclaiming, 'Tchaikovsky revu et corrigé par Fitzenhagen!'