Richard Blackford’s Cello Concerto The Recovery of Paradise is subtitled ‘Concerto for a Fragile Earth’.
The work is structured in four movements, influenced by the raw forces of nature - Earth, Air, Water and Fire - and takes its name from the wildfires that devastated Southern California in 2018. Here, Weilerstein, the Czech Philharmonic and Netopil perform the third movement, entitled ’Rhyme and Rhythm of The Rain’
The world premiere of The Recovery of Paradise took place earlier this year in February, at the Rudolfinum in Prague. In conversation with The Strad’s US correspondent Thomas May, Weilerstein outlined Blackford’s approach to the cello in the work.
’He writes beautifully for the instrument. He’s exploited every aspect of it and is very expressive. So it’s great fun to lean into that. Particularly in the first and third movements, there’s plenty of virtuosity to play with. He writes very fast tempi, and there’s a wildness and unbridledness about it, which I hadn’t heard so much in his other pieces.
’This seems a bit new for him. Whether this represents his response to the environmental aspect, or whether it was about the cello playing, or maybe both, I don’t know.
’Rhyme and Rhythm of The Rain’ is released as a single on 4 July. A digital-only EP of The Recovery of Paradise is released on Pentatone on 22 August 2025.
Read: Recovering paradise: Alisa Weilerstein on Richard Blackford’s new climate change concerto
Read: ‘Comparing yourself to others is counter-productive’ - Alisa Weilerstein’s life lessons
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