Review

The following is a review from Strings Attached (June 2016) which can be read in its entirety here.

Victor Herbert was another composer who played cello, but in his case at full professional level. He was born in Ireland in 1859, but grew up in Germany, emigrating to the United States in 1886. By the late 1890s he was one of the most famous musicians in America, celebrated for his playing and conducting and for his operettas.

His Cello Concertos Nos.1 and 2 are featured on a new Naxos CD in performances by Mark Kosower and the Ulster Orchestra under JoAnn Falletta (8.573517). Not surprisingly, both works are typical of the late German Romantic school. The Concerto No.1 in D Major Op.8 was performed by the composer in Stuttgart in 1885, and again in New York in 1887, but remained unpublished and apparently unperformed for many years; it was first recorded in 1986.

The Concerto No.2 in E Minor Op.30 is the stronger of the two works. Dvořák attended its premiere in New York in March 1894, and was so impressed with Herbert’s balancing of the large orchestra and the solo cello that it led directly to the composition of his own B-Minor Concerto within the year.

Kosower is in great form in two really lovely performances, and Falletta draws spirited playing from the orchestra for which she was principal conductor from 2011 to 2014.

Herbert’s Irish Rhapsody for Grand Orchestra completes the disc; it’s the expected mix of Irish tunes, much like the Bruch Scottish Fantasy in mood and orchestration, and with some brilliant counterpoint to round it off.