Compositions

Farewell Elegy Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (2016) 22′
3(picc), 2(eh), 2(bcl), 2 – 4, 2, 2(b-tromb), 1 – timp, perc(3), gr. piano, solo violoncello - 10, 8, 6, 4, 3
1 mouvement:  Plainte - Jeux - Un Rêve - Danse... - Epilogue

My cello concerto was composed at the beginning of 2016 as a single concerto movement, divided into five parts. 
In the first part "Plainte", the soloist introduces himself in a slow recitative lament - sparsely accompanied by the orchestra. The following vibrant allegro agitato "Jeux" launches a virtuoso interplay of cello and tutti. In the course of a repetitive sequence of four harmonic sections, the complex soloist and orchestral structures develop their full rhythmic momentum. The piano enhances the big band-like texture. A dramatic intensification directly leads into an abstract adagio dream world: "Un Rêve (A dream)" - is the delicate fabric of a solo five-part canon. The song of the cello swells into wide ripples, sometimes in great solitude, sometimes in close unison.
Out of this serenity the very rhythmic minimalist "Dance..." emerges and opens the second allegro in the course of which the cello, interacting with the ever-changing orchestra, comes to predominate with ever-increasingly intensity and virtuosity. A final eruption breaks the work and from the faraway worlds "Encore un Rêve (Another dream)" of the orchestra's bi-tonal soundscapes, the cello emerges with an uninterrupted arpeggised solo cadence, as if born from the spirit of Bach’s first cello prelude, like a phoenix out of the ashes. The music gradually slows down, stops: in the epilogue the soloist find his way back in pizzicato to the beginning of the elegy - Farewell.
My work is based on the tradition of the romantic rhapsody with modern big band jazz and dodecaphony elements. It is a farewell to my father, cellist Wolfgang Lieske, who died in 2014.