Dvořák - Cello Concerto in B Minor

Dvorak's B minor Cello Concerto is one of the summits of the cello repertoire, and here you can watch one of the great cello teachers coach its opening up close. Frans Helmerson gives a masterclass on the first movement of the concerto with student Sebastian Baverstam, accompanied by Catherine Edwards, drawing out the lyrical phrasing, passion and spirit the music asks for. It is a chance to take real interpretive and technical insight into your own playing of this deeply Romantic work, magnified by its remarkably rich melody.

Completed during the winter of 1895 while Dvorak was travelling in the USA, this is the last concerto he ever wrote, and might be his most brilliant. Shortly before he finished the score, Josefina Kaunikova, his sister-in-law, former student and childhood sweetheart, died; years later the composer's son wrote that the ending paid tribute to "the musician's last love". The work also pays tribute to Tchaikovsky. To Johannes Brahms the score was nothing but perfect: "Why on earth didn't I know one could write a cello concerto like this? If I'd only known, I'd have written one long ago!"

The Swedish cellist Frans Helmerson was born in 1945 and began playing the cello at the age of eight. After studies in Gothenburg, Rome and London and a debut in Stockholm, his solo career has taken him on countless tours across Europe, the USA, Asia and Russia, performing with many of the finest orchestras under some of today's greatest conductors. He is also renowned worldwide as one of the great teachers of the cello, holding professorships at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, where he is based, and at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Madrid, and he is a regular teacher at the Verbier Festival Academy.

In partnership with The Masterclass Media Foundation Archives, which provides a valuable educational resource in order to perpetuate musical passion and knowledge from one generation to another. [MMF009]