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TCHAIKOVSKY – Rococo Variations Op.33 (1876) – Options for CELLO AND ORCHESTRA

Other Identification:
The Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, for cello and orchestra is a work for cello and orchestra by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, being the closest he ever came to writing a full concerto for cello and orchestra. The style was inspired by Mozart, Tchaikovsky’s role model, and makes it clear that Tchaikovsky admired the Classical style very much. However, the Theme is not specifically Rococo in origin, but an original theme of the composer in the Rococo style.
Tchaikovsky wrote this piece for and with the enormous help of Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, a German cellist and fellow-professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Fitzenhagen gave the premiere in Moscow on November 30, 1877, with Nikolai Rubinstein conducting. This was perhaps the only hearing of the Variations as Tchaikovsky wrote the piece, as the cellist then set about a series of revisions and ‘improvements’. The ‘original’ was not again heard until 1941, when it was played in Moscow by Daniil Shafran. Even so, the majority of cellists still prefer – or have grown up with – the standard version.

Movements or sections:
See BOTH versions to this famous work!

Instrumentation:
Soloist Cello and Orchestra
….
5 PDFs –
PDF 1 – the ‘Fitzenhagen’ Cello Part
PDF 2 – the ‘original’ Soloist Cello Part
PDF 3 – the ‘Fitzenhagen’ general orchestral score
PDF 4 – the ‘original’ general orchestral score
PDF 5 – an INTERMEDIATE handwritten Manuscript (1876) – the cello soloist and piano reduction. The handwritten copy of the cello soloist and piano reduction includes some – but not all – of the suggestions by Fitzenhagen incorporated. This is for musicologists and the curious!

Approximate difficulty:
Virtuoso.

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