Introducing Edgar Moreau

Vasily Petrenko conducts Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony this week at the NSO, and award-winning cellist Edgar Moreau joins the orchestra to play the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No.1. I was lucky enough to catch up with him during this busy week so he could introduce himself and give us some insights into the Concerto. 

“Camille Saint-Saëns' First Concerto is a major work in every cellist’s repertoire. The first time I played it I must have been 7 or 8 years old! Of course, I was very young to face all the technical and instrumental difficulties of this piece, but it enabled me to make a lot of progress, because in the three movements that make up this concerto, there’s both an enormous amount of lyricism and virtuosity, making it one of the most complete masterpieces for our instrument. 

The three movements that make up Camille Saint-Saëns' first concerto are written in one breath, without interruption, and I think you have to imagine it as an uninterrupted journey, like a story in which a succession of unforeseen events unfolds. If I had one piece of advice for students working on this piece, I’d say watch out for the tempo of the second movement, which is inspired by the Baroque minuet, and is too often played far too slowly! 

My favorite passage in this piece is surely the magnificent theme of the third movement, a song that is at once overflowingly expressive but also elegant and refined, a hallmark of Camille Saint-Saëns' measured romanticism. 

I play a cello by David Tecchler, a luthier of the School of Rome, which was designed in 1711. It’s an instrument I’ve been playing for 16 years now, so we’re getting to know each other!” 

Concerts are Sat, Feb. 22 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 23 at 3 p.m. at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. 

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