Elgar 85 Cello

The tragedy of du Pré’s brief career is still fresh in the public memory and can be summarised here. She was born in Oxford on 26 January 1945 into a middle-class family in which music was important: her mother was a fine pianist and a gifted teacher. The French-sounding name came from her father’s Channel Islands ancestry. Just before her fifth birthday, when she was already showing musical promise, she heard the sound of a cello on the radio and the course of her life was set.

Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, by which time his music had gone out of fashion with the concert-going public.
The Violin Concerto of William Walton was written in 1938–39 and reorchestrated in 1943. The concerto, about a half-hour in length, is scored for violin solo and standard orchestra (the revision pared down the percussion section from the original).