Four Spirits, concerto for cello, voice, percussion and orchestra

Program notes

About the Work

‘Four Spirits’ is Abel Selaocoe’s first cello concerto, and he is its soloist in more than the usual sense: he plays, sings, tells stories and leads. It was commissioned jointly by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony and the Dutch orchestra Philharmonie Zuidnederland, and was first performed, according to his record label, in 2022. It is scored for cello, voice, percussion and orchestra, and has four movements that run into one another.

Each of the four takes up something that, in Selaocoe’s account, holds life together in the South African township where he grew up. The first, ‘MaSebego’, is about the ancestors and the traditional healer’s role. The second, ‘Bana’, is about children and their play. The third, ‘Tshepo’, is about faith and prayer, and the last, ‘Simunye’, about community. The words he sings are in Southern Sotho and Zulu.

A concerto in the European tradition usually sets one player against the orchestra. Selaocoe turns that around. The cello part moves freely between written music and improvisation, the voice is treated as an instrument in its own right, and a solo percussionist is as close a partner as the orchestra, whose players are sometimes asked to sing as well. His singing draws on the overtone or throat singing of the Xhosa people, known as umngqokolo: a deep, buzzing tone with high harmonics floating above it.

The piece has not stood still. By the time Selaocoe recorded it in 2025, with the Aurora Orchestra under Nicholas Collon, it had been through many changes since the first performances, and because so much of it is improvised no two evenings are the same. In the Gashouder, where the audience is close to the players and part of it is standing, it is paired with another work about ritual and community: Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’.

What to Listen For

Listen first for the range of sounds one performer produces. Selaocoe’s voice can drop to a low growl beneath the cello line and then leap to light, fluttering high notes, and he often sings and bows at the same time, so that it can be hard to tell where the instrument stops and the voice begins.

In ‘Bana’ the cello turns playful and scampers high on the fingerboard, with sliding harmonics and skittish plucked notes. ‘Tshepo’ begins with rapid figures across the strings that recall Baroque cello writing, before percussion and voice pull the music somewhere else entirely. Throughout, the drumming gives the groove that the orchestra then picks up and colours.

The last movement is about singing together, and Selaocoe means it literally. In earlier performances he has taught the audience a phrase before starting and brought everyone in during the finale, so be ready to join in.