Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, B. 191, by Antonín Dvořák (1894)

An entry point for one kind of classical music

The first recording I purchased for myself¹ was a cassette containing this piece of music, performed by an orchestra from somewhere in Eastern Europe. (If I still had the cassette, I could tell you who it was.)

I bought it because I recognized the name Dvořák as the composer of the New World Symphony. My middle school band had played a watered-down arrangement of that piece, and I was familiar with the melody - so I trusted that my $3.99 investment in this tape would at least be interesting.

Forty-something years later, I have heard countless versions of this piece. It has become the gold standard of what I think of when someone says “classical music” - though, academically, you could argue that Dvorak composed during the Romantic period, and that his use of folk melodies was not something that a typically “Classical” or “Romantic” composer did.

But academic quibbling aside, my favorite versions have been performed by cellist Mstislav Rostropovich