Darkest/Blackest Cello Concerto?

[snyprrr]

I hear Aho's is pretty dark.

I suppose, of what I have...mm... Schnittke's No.2? I mean, there MUST be darker than Shostakovich No.2, right? Wow, I really don't have much here in the way of off-the-beaten-path. Surely someone here knows.

I have a lot of the CCs up until about the '60s, but none are really BLACK!! Penderecki No.2...mm...eh... maybe more psychedelic than dark? Surely his Violin Concerto No.1 is his blackest work?

I know that this would haaave to be a work after the '60s. Things were pretty dark in the '70s, haha!!

Anyhow, I hope this gets the juices flowing!

[Karl Henning]

Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme.

(Okay, just kidding.)

[Daverz]

I'm not turning up a Pettersson cello concerto.

[Mirror Image]

Britten's Cello Symphony is definitely a contender here I think. It's certainly a darkly-hued, troubled work.

[Kontrapunctus]

I suppose, of what I have...mm... Schnittke's No.2? I mean, there MUST be darker than Shostakovich No.2, right?

I prefer Schnittke's Cello Concerto No.1 to No.2--I'm not sure absolute black levels, but No.1 is mighty grim and violent in places. Natalia Gutman owns this piece. It's on the Russian Revolution label.

[Cato]

I know that this would haaave to be a work after the '60s. Things were pretty dark in the '70s, haha!!

Yes they were, and it wasn't funny, buster!   

How about the Elgar Cello Concerto? 

[Mirror Image]

Or the Finzi Cello Concerto?

[North Star]

Or the Finzi Cello Concerto?

I thought of that, too, but the third movement ruins it 

[Mirror Image]

I thought of that, too, but the third movement ruins it 

Yeah, I know, but let's include it anyway.

[Cato]

Not a concerto, but the Bruch Kol Nidre could fit.

And Snyprr: Are you trying to find a way down from that Red Bull high?

[The new erato]

I prefer Schnittke's Cello Concerto No.1 to No.2--I'm not sure absolute black levels, but No.1 is mighty grim and violent in places. Natalia Gutman owns this piece. It's on the Russian Revolution label.

Schnittke for me as well. I love no 2; but it's grim as hell. The Chandos recording is magnificent. The Gramophone reviewer wrote:

"Its intrinsic drama is there in microcosm in the first 30 seconds, as the orchestra tries to strangle the cello's passionate monologue at birth. What follows is 42 minutes of essentially the same process, enacted in five alternately slow and fast movements and culminating in the mother of all passacaglias. It's like experiencing a moment of emotional catastrophe, when the only thing to hang on to is the knowledge that the trauma cannot last, except that here it does last; and you''re forced to stare it full in the face"."

[some guy]

I'm looking for a really loud painting, one with no volume control.

[dyn]

plenty of black composers wrote cello concertos. David Baker, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, ...

that is what you meant, right?

[Brahmsian]

Darkest (or most ominous) cello concertos, from the one's I've heard - it would have to be one of the ones by Kabelevsky.

[Mirror Image]

Darkest (or most ominous) cello concertos, from the one's I've heard - it would have to be one of the ones by Kabelevsky.

Really? Is this a joke?

[Brahmsian]

Really? Is this a joke?

Uh, no. 

[Mirror Image]

Uh, no. 

I need to go back to listen to those works then, because darkness is not something I usually associate with Kabalevsky.

[some guy]

The whole "dark" thing is a joke from the get go.

But never mind. What I REALLY want (dyn ) is a calculus formula that's filling but low in calories.

[The Six]

Probably William Grant Still's.

[Cato]

Probably William Grant Still's.