Following cello studies in Hanover with August Christian Prell (student of Romberg), Georg Goltermann studied in Munich with Joseph Menter and soon embarked on a short career as a touring virtuoso. Having also studied composition with Ignaz Lachner, Goltermann began receiving recognition for his compositions such as his Symphony in A and his First Cello Concerto. He stopped touring in 1852 to become music director in Würzburg, but he left just one year later for Frankfurt where he served briefly as assistant music director before rising to principal music director in 1874.

Goltermann’s prolific body of work went on to include further orchestral pieces, seven more cello concertos, myriad songs—many with cello and piano accompaniment—and dozens of character pieces for cello and piano. He is best remembered for his cello concertos (No. 4 in particular), which continue to be valued as effective teaching tools, and—owing to the huge popularity of ensemble music for multiple cellos—his Deux morceaux (Romance and Serenade) for four cellos, op. 119. The work was first published in 1895 and dedicated to cellist Ferdinand Forino, professor at the newly founded Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. Of the two lush, lyrical pieces—Romance and Serenade—we hear the second, a luxurious A-B-A form in which the contrasting center section explores some colorful harmonic inflections before settling back into the opening music.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe