Watch Canadian cellist Bryan Cheng play a staple of the cello repertoire, Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto no.1.
Cheng had the opportunity to perform the concerto in January 2025 with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and conductor Erina Yashima, an experience he described as ’an absolute dream come true for me.’
Based in Berlin, Cheng told The Strad that he had grown up musically on the orchestra’s huge archive of videos and was always struck by the quality and commitment of the players.
’Getting to experience that firsthand for myself, sitting centimetres away, was an even more intoxicatingly positive experience. For me, it felt like a match made in heaven, with the perfect balance of flexibility, spontaneity, and colour possibility, which is exactly what a refined and sumptuous work like the Saint-Saëns needs.’
Cheng - like many other cellists - learnt this concerto early on in his cello studies as a ‘prescribed’ student concerto, but did not recognise it as a masterwork until much later in his development.
’Shostakovich adored this composition and it was his favourite cello concerto in terms of balance, structure, and duration, even loosely modelling his own first cello concerto on some of these elements,’ Cheng says.
’In coming back to this piece for the Frankfurt performance after several years, I found the manuscript of the full orchestral score online with (likely) Saint-Saëns’s own markings/corrections, which was absolutely fascinating to study!
’Taking into account some newfound revelations, this live video perhaps does away with some inherited traditions over the years, and instead channels my wish to showcase the fluidity, flamboyancy, lightness, and intimacy of this magnificent and concise masterwork, which gives me so much joy to play!’
Cheng performs on the 1696 ‘Bonjour’ Stradivari cello, generously on loan from the Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank.
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