Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85

Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85, concerto for cello and orchestra by English composer Sir Edward Elgar, first performed in London in October of 1919. It is a sombre work, reflecting the sorrows faced by the composer’s native land in the closing months of World War I.

Within Elgar’s body of work, his cello concerto is unusual: instead of being hearty and self-assured, the music is introspective and restrained, especially when compared with such works as the composer’s well-known Pomp and Circumstance marches.

Structured in four movements rather than the customary three, the concerto opens with a dialogue between cello and clarinet, before strings introduce the first of several flowing, sorrowful themes. Each theme is then passed to the soloist. The second movement begins in an elegiac mood, and more restless tempos are introduced toward the end. The third movement returns to the slow, brooding style of the first. For much of the final movement, the concerto pushes ahead with a greater sense of motion than in the earlier movements. A marchlike energy appears and is from time to time broken up by mournful passages. That movement, more than any of the preceding ones, requires the soloist to perform the sort of quick-fingered passagework typically associated with concerti.