Concerto No. 1, Op. 107
By Dmitri Shostakovich

To concerto is an amazingly difficult but magnificent work for the cello with great drama and passion. This edition is looking a little tired. It needs to be re-engraved. The notation for the cello part is pretty dense and lines slightly uneven with the occasional gap in the lines...

on the first page in particular. (some of the naturals and sharps can look similar due to printing drop-outs.) It just needs to spaced out a little more. Some sections are clearer than others. There are similar issues in the piano reductions where some of the chords with thirds almost look like a single blob on the stave. On the positive side, the page turns are very well done. The typesetter has managed to put a bar/s of rest on the bottom of each right hand page to enable a page turn during a break in the music. Well done on that point. Some publishers seem to think everybody performs from memory. This is one piece that one might expect the performer to like to have the music in front of them.

This is quite possibly my most favorite cello concerto of all time. There is the first movement, which the whole concerto is based upon, and the second movement is a slow and extremely intense lament, if you will, which follows directly into the cadenza, which is completely a cello solo...

. The cadenza leads directly into the last movement, which is only about four minutes, but is incredible, and a phenomenal wrap of the whole piece by Shostakovich. This edition is very good for the price.

Great concerto for cellists, although last movement of piano needs some reducing to sound more like the orchestra

This concerto is one of the hardest concertos for cello ever written. It is insane. This concerto is very emotional and very intense which must be pulled off during extremley difficult technical passages.

this is my favorite cello concerto ever even beating out the dvorak, yes it even beats that. it is a crowd pleaser, big as they come. it has amazing melodies, the first movement is quite possibly my favorite song ever. it so wonderful words cant even describe it. buy it...

or live to regret it for evermore.