Concerto-Elegy: Cello Concerto no.4

“This one-movement Concerto was written in 2008 and dedicated to Anatole Liebermann who commissioned me this work. Anatole played the premiere of my first Cello concerto in Moscow in 1975 and his playing of the premiere of this new Concerto is a kind of a recapitulation of our creative collaboration.
The main material of the concerto is based on my piece for cello solo ‘For Slava’ which I wrote on the day of the funeral of Mstislav Rostropovich in April 2007, and therefore all the composition is penetrated with the rhythm of a funeral march. For the second subject I used the theme with the rhythm derived from Tchaikovsky’s aria of Lensky from his opera ‘Eugene Onegin’: ‘The world will forget me...’. During my conversations with Rostropovich I always felt that this question is very important for him. However I am sure the world will never forget him.” (Elena Firsova)