This is my third solo concerto of recent years, following the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1996-99) and the Chamber Concerto ("Singing Figures") for Oboe and Ensemble (1996). I have enjoyed composing such works because of a longstanding interest in the drama of the solo-versus-group idea, but also, more profoundly, because of the pleasure of collaborating with a gifted soloist when there is time to explore and to refine, a kind of music-making which I find pleasurable as well as challenging. To a soloist, such a collaboration offers the freedom to probe whatever imaginative world may lie beyond the existing repertory. Musicians such as David Hardy, for whom the Cello Concerto was written, deserve to find out: Do I have anything new or different to say?
The Cello Concerto takes about 28 minutes, and is cast in four parts: a large first movement, communicating
