Cello, da!

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear two works for cello and orchestra, written by composers of Eastern European origin, both of whom attained fame in Russia.

Carl Davidoff (sometimes spelled Karl Davydov) was born in Latvia in 1838. He became head of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where Tchaikovsky was a colleague. Tchaikovsky dubbed him “The Tsar of the Cello.” Davidoff wrote four cello concertos, all of which have been recorded on the CPO label. We’ll be listening to the first of these, performed by Wen-Sinn Wang.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg (also known as Moisei Vainberg) was of Polish-Jewish origin. Despite having suffered the loss of much of his family in the Holocaust and being singled out for persecution in the Soviet Union under Stalin, Weinberg was a dizzyingly productive composer. He wrote 22 symphonies, 7 operas, and an enormous amount of chamber and instrumental music, including 17 string quartets, 8 violin sonatas, 6 cello sonatas, and 6 piano sonatas, to say nothing of dozens of film scores. Yet Weinberg’s achievements were eclipsed by those of Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

Shostakovich took a special interest in the younger composer, frequently interceding on his behalf, and promoting him as “one of the most outstanding composers of the present day.”

We’ll hear Weinberg’s Cello Concerto of 1948, performed by the work’s dedicatee, Mstislav Rostropovich.

Join me for “A Russian Cellobration,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Friday morning at 3, or listen to it later as a webcast, at http://wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Slava rocks the cello