Elgar - Sospiri for cello and piano. You can download the PDF sheet music Elgar - Sospiri for cello and piano on this page. Sospiri, Op. 70, originally is an adagio for string orchestra, piano and organ composed by Edward Elgar just before the beginning of World War I. Elgar originally intended it for violin and piano. While composing it, however, he realised that he was writing something more intense, and so chose an Italian word, sospiri, meaning "sighs". The work, with a performance time of approximately five minutes, was first performed on 15 August 1914 in Queen's Hall in London, conducted by Sir Henry Wood. Sospiri was dedicated to Elgar's long-time friend, the violinist W. H. "Billy" Reed. To view the first page of Elgar - Sospiri for cello and piano click the music sheet image.
After the Cello Concerto, Elgar completed no more large-scale works. He made arrangements of works by Bach, Handel and Chopin, in distinctively Elgar's orchestration, and once again turned his youthful notebooks to use for the Nursery Suite (1931). His other compositions of this period have not held a place in the regular repertory. For most of the rest of the twentieth century, it was generally agreed that Elgar's creative impulse ceased after his wife's death. Anthony Payne's elaboration of the sketches for Elgar's Third Symphony led to a reconsideration of this supposition. Elgar left the opening of the symphony complete in full score, and those pages, along with others, show Elgar's orchestration changed markedly from the richness of his pre-war work.
