Cello Concerto, in A minor, Op. 22

The concerto unfolds in three movements played with a full orchestra behind a solo cellist who rarely rests.

I. Allegro moderato: The cello enters almost immediately with a restless, striving melody over busy orchestral figuration. Listen for the push-pull between the soloist's long, arching lines and sharp orchestral interjections, and for a cadenza, a passage where the orchestra falls silent and the cellist plays alone, showing off both technique and tone.

II. Andante sostenuto: A slow movement built on a warm, unhurried melody first heard in the orchestra before the cello takes it up. The mood is intimate, almost like a private conversation, with the cello often singing above hushed strings and winds.

III. Molto allegro e appassionato: The finale returns to nervous energy, with quick exchanges between soloist and orchestra, sudden shifts of mood, and a sense of momentum that drives to a decisive close. Rhythmic bite and rapid passagework for the soloist dominate.

Throughout, the piece never quite settles into easy comfort, its lyrical moments always shadowed by tension, which is part of what gives it its distinctive character among mid-century American concertos.

Samuel Barber wrote his Cello Concerto in 1945 on commission from the conductor and cellist Serge Koussevitzky's Koussevitzky Music Foundation, for the cellist Raya Garbousova. It was premiered that year in Boston with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Koussevitzky conducting and Garbousova as soloist. Barber shaped much of the solo writing around Garbousova's own playing and technique. The concerto won the New York Music Critics' Circle Award shortly after its premiere. Despite this early acclaim, it has never entered the concerto repertoire as firmly as Barber's Violin Concerto, though cellists continue to program it for its combination of lyricism and technical demand, and it remains a significant, if less frequently heard, contribution to the American concerto literature.