Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major

Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 was composed in the early 1760s, during the first years of his engagement by the Esterházys—the immensely rich family in whose employ he would stay for the remainder of his career. The soloist was the Esterházy orchestra’s cellist, Joseph Weigl, who would also have taken the solos in Symphonies Nos. 6-8, composed around the same time. And that was that, for two whole centuries: the performing material for the concerto disappeared and the work was known only from a catalogue entry, until a copy of the score was unearthed in Prague in 1961. The concerto was triumphantly re-premiered the following year by cellist Miloš Sádlo and the Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra under Charles Mackerras, and has become one of Haydn’s most popular works. The lingering Baroque stateliness of the opening movement finds its foil in the ecstatic melodic outpouring of the “Adagio” and the athletic finale, and the concerto as a whole challenges and delights cellists in equal measure.