In this first installment: late-Romantic war horses by Stojowski and Alnaes, giant and complex concertos by Busoni and Reger, quirky concertos by Stravinsky and Janacek, jazzy concertos by Gershwin, Copland and Lambert, and lyrical concertos by Delius, Palmgren and Tveitt - not to forget the magnificent "Dynamic Triptych" concerto by John Foulds.
1. Ferruccio Busoni, Piano Concerto in C Major Op 39 (1904, Italy)
In its grand Wagnerian conception (there is even a male chorus in the operatic last movement) this is in fact still a very 19th c. concerto, although there are also associations with the gargantuan Mahler symphonies. Busoni conceived his concerto in five movements. The first, third and fifth movements are large, serious conceptions - the third slow movement is the emotional heart of the work. The second and fourth movements are both Italian dances, tarantella, each using Neapolitan folk song. The last movement incorporates an (invisible) male chorus. In this way, the concerto both possesses great nobility and dignity while on the other hand remaining brilliant fun. One could call it a combination of the native Italian and German-influenced sides of Busoni. But while it is huge, it is also modest, as much of the piano line remains hidden as part of the orchestral texture. A sincere and heartfelt concerto.
[Performance listed to: Garrick Ohlsson and the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi on Telarc]
1. Ferruccio Busoni, Piano Concerto in C Major Op 39 (1904, Italy)
In its grand Wagnerian conception (there is even a male chorus in the operatic last movement) this is in fact still a very 19th c. concerto, although there are also associations with the gargantuan Mahler symphonies. Busoni conceived his concerto in five movements. The first, third and fifth movements are large, serious conceptions - the third slow movement is the emotional heart of the work. The second and fourth movements are both Italian dances, tarantella, each using Neapolitan folk song. The last movement incorporates an (invisible) male chorus. In this way, the concerto both possesses great nobility and dignity while on the other hand remaining brilliant fun. One could call it a combination of the native Italian and German-influenced sides of Busoni. But while it is huge, it is also modest, as much of the piano line remains hidden as part of the orchestral texture. A sincere and heartfelt concerto.
[Performance listed to: Garrick Ohlsson and the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi on Telarc]
2. Frederick Delius, Piano Concerto in C Minor (1904 / 1907, Britain)
Delius is an acquired taste. When I first listened to him, in my early twenties, I felt lost in the formless, lyrical soup of his music and hankered after clearer contours. But today his music fits me like a glove - we probably get more mellow and lyrical with the years... The piano concerto was the first concertante work Delius wrote and it had a rather troubled genesis, going through various versions. Today, the version in three movements from 1904 is generally considered as the most interesting and most typically "Delian" (in the last and "standard" version of 1907 the piano part was at Delius' request rewritten by a pianist-friend, but it is more Chopin than Delius). It is a full-blooded romantic concerto, but without any empty pianistic display, so although this is an early work, we already can hear Delius' mature lyrical and meditative style. Both themes of the first movement show the influence of the Afro-American sounds which influenced Delius so much during his Florida sojourns. The central Largo movement has a sonorous piano part, and the third movement (which was discarded in the 1907 version) ends with a grand tutti in Delius's finest orchestral splendor. Perhaps because of the many revisions, Delius' piano concerto is less well-known than his violin concerto or cello concerto, but it is an appealing piece of music that certainly deserves to be heard more.
[Performance listened to: Howard Shelley with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis on Chandos (three movement version 1904)]
The revised edition can be heard at YouTube, played by Justin Bird and the IU Adhoc Symphony Orchestra, Nick Hersh, Conductor:
3. Zygmunt Stojowski, Piano Concerto No 2 in A flat major 'Prologue, Scherzo and Variations' Op 3 (1909-1910)
Zygmunt Stojowski (1870–1946) was hailed throughout Europe as one of Poland’s most outstanding composers at the fin de siècle, a symphonist of European calibre and one of the great late-romantic composers. However, when the "long 19th century" ended in the ashes of WWI, he was overtaken by the development of music and stopped composing. The Second Piano Concerto, written in 1909-1910 in Chamonix, was in that regard one of his last works, before Stojowski directed his energy into performance and teaching.
The concerto was initially titled "Prelude, Scherzo and Variations." The manuscript and sketches for it were recently found in son Henry's family archive in New York. Henry donated it to the University of California's Polish Music Center. It was premiered in London at Queen's Hall in 1913 with the composer at the piano. The piece was published by Publisher Heugel in Paris. The American premiere in New York with the New York Philharmonic with the composer at the piano was in Carnegie Hall in 1915. The piece was dedicated to Jan Paderewski.
Paderewski's performance of the second piano concerto, also at Carnegie Hall but with the New York Symphony Orchestra conducted by Walter Damrosch in 1916, caused a sensation. Demand for tickets to the March four concert was so great that an open rehearsal was scheduled on March two. After the March four concert, the audience refused to leave. Only after huge applause that lasted for minutes did the hall dim the lights again and Paderewski returned to play Stojowski's Chant d'amour. In doing so, he violated the Symphony Society's rule not to play encores after a piano concert.
[Performance listened to: Jonathan Plowright (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins (conductor) on Hyperion]
4. Max Reger, Piano Concerto In F Minor Op 114 (1910, Germany)
A sprawling, serious, three-movement concerto lasting roughly 40 minutes, with a tempestuous first movement, an elegiac and delicate second movement and a vigorous third movement full of "clenched teeth" exuberance. The heroic first movement starts with a portentous orchestral introduction and bold first statement by the piano. The piano is fully integrated with the orchestra. The thick-set textures and chromatism are typical of Reger. In dramatic seriousness and complexity this work is equal to the second Brahms concerto. Few composers however have been as misunderstood as Max Reger, whose music has often been regarded as heavy and unrelievedly contrapuntal. This is a massive, tragic concerto.
[Performance listened to: Barry Douglas with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Marec Janowski on RCA Victor]
5. Selim Palmgren, Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 22 "The River" (1911, Finland)
Selim Palmgren (1878–1951) was born in Pori, Finland. He studied at the Conservatory in Helsinki from 1895 to 1899, then continued his piano studies in Berlin with Ansorge, Berger and Busoni. He conducted choral and orchestral societies in his own country and made several very successful concert tours as a pianist in the principal cities of Finland and Scandinavia, appearing also as a visiting conductor. In 1921, he went to the United States, where he taught composition at the Eastman School of Music, later returning to Helsinki.
Palmgren wrote his second piano concerto, Op. 33 between 1907 and 1912. The concerto is inspired by the Kokemäenjoki River, along which Palmgren boated during his boyhood. The River concerto is probably the most popular and most played of Finnish piano concertos. In its day, its success was triumphant; in the fall of 1913, the concerto was played in Helsinki, Stockholm and Berlin and received an ecstatic reception.
[Performance listened to: Juhani Lagerspetz with Turku Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jacques Mercier on Finlandia]
6. Eyvind Alnaes, Piano Concerto in D major Op 27 (1914, Norway)
Eyvind Alnæs (1872-1932) received his early musical education at the predecessor of the Oslo Conservatory, but he was only really influenced by his further education at the Felix Mendelssohn School of Music and Theater, his teacher there was Carl Reinecke, who thus became a major influence on classical music in Norway. Subsequently, Alnaes was able to enjoy further training with Julius Ruthard in Berlin. His musical career seemed to have a prosperous start with performances of, for example, his First Symphony. Yet he was more or less forced to limit himself to conducting choirs as there was hardly any orchestra available in Norway. He also previously held positions in all kinds of organizations, such as the Norwegian Composers' Union and TONO (Norwegian Copyright Association). Because of that busy life and the lack of a real orchestra, he hardly had time to compose major works, half of his oeuvre consisting of songs or works for piano solo. The only two major works after 1900 were the Piano Concerto in D Op.27 and the Second Symphony.
The first movement of the piano concerto, in a brilliant D major, has a large-scale character - a true late Romantic concerto. Glittering virtuoso piano passages alternate with orchestral writing that has a Wagnerian force. In contrast, the second movement has a tragic character in the mood of a funeral march. The last movement is a tribute to the Viennese waltz and a great mixture of popular melody and virtuoso piano-writing.
[Performance listened to: Piers Lane and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Litton on Hyperion]
7. Ernst von Dohnányi, Variations on a Nursery Theme for Piano and Orchestra (1916, Hungary)
This is pure fun, a tongue-in-cheek humorous and playful concerto: an introduction, statement-of-theme and then eleven variations on the nursery rhyme tune “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” ("Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman"). The pompous introduction is full of Wagnerian gestures and faux pathos, until a cymbal clash brings the piano on stage with the nostalgic old nursery tune, an unexpected contrast which will make you smile. What follows is a witty set of variations often alluding to the musical style of other composers. The first variation is simple and innocent, the third one romantic, bringing to mind Brahms's Second Piano Concerto, the sixth variation scampers along, the seventh variation is a boisterous waltz, variation eight alludes to the march from the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony and the pathos-laden tenth variation hearkens back to the Wagnerian opening. In contrast, the eleventh variation sports ethereal harmonies which allude to Debussy. Dohnányi aptly wrote on the score "to the enjoyment of friends of humor, to the annoyance of the others."
[Performance listened to: Howard Shelley with BBC Philharmonic conducted by Matthias Bamert on Chandos]
8. Sergei Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No 2 in G Minor Op 16 (1913 / 1923, Soviet Union)
This concerto carries two dates: it was originally written and performed in 1913, but in WWI the score was lost, and in in 1923, after writing his Third Piano Concerto, Prokofiev reconstructed it from memory, but also altered so many elements, that it became in fact a new work, his real "fourth concerto." Prokofiev gave the new version more depth, but he also kept the original piano-athletics, making this one of the most challenging of all piano concertos. Perhaps that is why it has always been in the shadow of Prokofiev's other concertos, at least until the 1970s, when it crept to the edge of the repertoire. The concerto is in four movements, the second movement a devilish perpetuum mobile and the third a sinister march and another piece of fierce motorism. In a sense both these movements are intermezzos between the more expansive first movement and finale, both of which feature huge cadenzas as their focal point. The whole concerto is imbued with something like the grinding harshness of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite of 1915. It is a dark concerto (dedicated to the memory of a friend of Prokofiev's at the St. Petersburg Conservatory who had committed suicide) imbued with a wild temperament.
Listen to Yuja Wang and the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Paavo Järvi on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9U9W7FjN-M
In the 1920s, Korngold stood at the apex of his fame (he was the most performed composer after Richard Strauss in Austria), when he was approached by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein to compose a concerto for the left hand. Paul Wittgenstein, who was the elder brother of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, had lost his right arm in that terrible European war, WWI, but instead of giving up the piano, he devised novel techniques that allowed him to play chords previously regarded as impossible for a five-fingered pianist. He also actively commissioned works from well-known composers of his day, including Maurice Ravel, Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev and Paul Hindemith, but he first approached Erich Korngold, who had just written his great opera Die tote Stadt. This concerto shows Korngold at his most experimental and features a very large and colorful orchestra. It is in one movement and so concentrated in form that it makes repeated listening necessary. Harmony and tonality are highly original. As a serious composer, Korngold was almost forgotten after he fled for the Nazis and had to build up a new career as film composer in Hollywood, but today he has been fully rehabilitated. Another factor limiting the popularity of this highly unique concerto was that Wittgenstein possessed the exclusive performing rights until his death in 1961. By the way, Wittgenstein was so pleased with this work that he commissioned another composition from Korngold, the Suite for Left Hand Piano and Strings.
[Performance listened to: Marc-André Hamelin with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conductor Osmo Vanska on Hyperion]
10. Igor Stravinsky, Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1923–24, Russia / France / America)[Performance listened to: Marc-André Hamelin with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conductor Osmo Vanska on Hyperion]
After the Russian extravagance and barbaric Impressionism of his famous ballets in the years before WWI, Stravinsky became a Neo-classicist, in contrast working with small ensembles and in more traditional forms, although he also looked for novelty in for example the interesting combination of the piano with only a wind orchestra. In this highly original concerto, eighteenth century gestures may be employed to tease the ears, but basically, this is hard driven, aggressive and percussive music, undeniably Stravinskian. In contrast, the slow movement is extremely simple and therefore all the more memorable. There is a playful episode at the end of the third and last movement, where the music stops and the piano just repeats a single chord, as if the pianist had forgotten what to play, before the final chase to the end. A vigorous and brilliant concerto.
[Performance listened to: Steven Osborne (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ilan Volkov (conductor) on Hyperion]
11. Paul Hindemith, Kammermusik No 2 for Piano and 12 Instruments, Op 36 no 1 (1924, Germany)
Another Neo-classical concerto, with a small orchestra consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, string trio and double bass. It is Baroque in spirit, each movement is carried forward irresistibly by a basic pulse. The piano writing is not only highly rhythmic, but also very contrapuntal. The first movement is toccata-like, with busy motoric figurations; in the slow movement the piano spins melodic variations above an ostinato bass theme; and after a tiny scherzo the Finale resumes the energetic style of the opening movement. A very fine work, like all Hindemith's eight "Kammermusiken."
[Performance listened to: Ronald Brautigam with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Richard Chailly on Decca]
12. Ottorino Respighi, Concerto in modo misolidio for piano and orchestra (1925, Italy)
After writing his large-scale symphonic poems, Respighi looked for a way to create typically Italian music and found it in Gregorian chant. This interest is evident in his 1921 violin concerto, Concerto gregoriano, and in the present piano concerto. The piano concerto makes use of the seventh of the church modes ("modo misolidio") and carries a flavor of plainchant in its material, the source of its inspiration. It opens with a passage for the piano based on the Introit for the Mass of Ascension Day. Also the beautiful slow movement features a Gregorian melody, brought as a dialogue between piano and orchestra. The third movement is a Passacaglia, with eighteen variations, inventively bubbling music. The concerto ends with an impressively romantic climax.
[Performance listened to: Konstantin Sherbakov with Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Griffiths on Naxos]
13. George Gershwin, Concerto in F (1925, U.S.A.)
This is very fine music, a response to demands for a "proper concerto" after the success of the Rhapsody in Blue, avoiding programmatic content. The many themes are both uplifting and nostalgic. The concerto has been called "a masterpiece of unity under a veneer of medley," an integration achieved through cyclic form and thematic transformation. In fact, virtually every tune in the Gershwin concerto is linked to the big melody that follows the introduction to the first movement. The finale, in rondo form, also acts as a grand recapitulation of the whole work, again tying things together. With its snappy rhythms and jazzy dissonances layered over a diatonic foundation, this concerto is the avatar of the Jazz Age.
On YouTube played by Yuja Wang and Michael Tilson Thomas:
14. Aaron Copland, Piano Concerto (1926, U.S.A.)
Jazz was in the air and Copland's concerto of 1926 forms a sort of dialogue with the Gershwin concerto. Copland starts of with a brash, dissonant fanfare, a typical "wide spaces" opening, followed by a calm if astringent Andante sostenuto. After this more traditional 1920s music, the soloist erupts with a variety of rhythmic and intervallic invocations of jazz. In other words, like in Copland's (later) clarinet concerto, a song-like first movement is linked by a cadenza to a fast and rhythmically complex final movement. But as the jazz element is not so much present in the tunes but rather as the underlying harmonic and rhythmic basis of the score, the concerto is very different from Gershwin. In this concerto we find the harder-edged Copland from the time before he deliberately popularized his style in the 1930s.
[Performance listened to: Noel Lee with Orchestre National de France conducted by Aaron Copland on Etcetera]
15. Leoš Janáček, Capriccio for Piano Left-Hand and Chamber Ensemble (1926, Czech)
Another concerto for the left hand, not for Wittgenstein, but the Czech pianist Otokar Hollmann (indeed another WWI victim). The work is scored for chamber ensemble consisting of flute and piccolo, two trumpets, three trombones and a tenor tuba, resulting in an even more original sound than Stravinsky's concerto discussed above. The Capriccio consists of four movements. Privately, Janáček called it "Defiance," either referring to the attitude of the pianist who continued playing despite his loss of an arm, or to the "defiant" combination of a piano with mainly brass instruments. The virtuoso brass sound looks back to the military sound of Janáček's Sinfonietta, but is of course much more transparent here. All the same, unusual demands are placed on all individual players, not only the piano. The overall effect is indeed "capricious": whimsical and full of "willfulness and witticisms," as Janáček himself said. Delicious music in Janáček's late style.
[Performance listened to: Rudolf Firkusny with Czech Philharmonic conducted by Vaclav Neumann on RCA Victor]
16. Nikolai Medtner, Piano Concerto No 2 in C Minor Op 50 (1927, Russian)Nikolai Medtner wrote three concertos, the second of which is my favorite, an energetic and entrancing piece of music. Medtner was a pianist-composer like Rachmaninoff, and he also left Russia after the Soviets came to power, emigrating to the U.K. The concerto is in three movements: Toccata, Romanza and Divertimento. The outer movements are ebullient and full of kinetic energy, the central Romanza is delightfully lyrical. In the first movement there is much dialogue between piano and orchestra and the tireless motor rhythms also show Medtner loved his Scarlatti. The Divertimento plays with themes from the previous movements in a dancing style that culminates in a riot. Medtner's music is not as gripping as Rachmaninoff, but it grows on you, and you will not tire of it as soon as of that of his fellow emigre-countryman. A concerto that deserves to be better known.
[Geoffrey Tozer with the London Philharmonic conducted by Neeme Jarvi on Chandos]
17. Geirr Tveitt, Piano Concerto No. 1 in F major, Op. 1 (1927)
Geirr Tveitt (1908-81) was, along with Harald Sæverud, the most important Norwegian composer of his generation. Tveitt was an ardent folklorist who obsessively collected and used folk tunes - his most popular surviving collection of music, the Hardanger Tunes, consists of straight-forward transcriptions of folksongs.
The first piano concerto which Tveitt wrote at age 19 (when he was a student in Leipzig) is more cosmopolitan in outlook - only the second movement has a decided Norwegian flavor. The work is Neo-Romantic in tone, full of consonance and melody.
It is a very quiet work. opening with a haunting modal tune introduced by the piano with minimal accompaniment. Some intensely beautiful passages follow as the horns and woodwinds trade phrases with the piano. The central movement is a dancing scherzo. The work again ends very quietly. It has a compact, arch-like structure.
[Performance listened to: Håvard Gimse, piano; Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Bjarte Engeset, cond. on Naxos]
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[Henriette Bosmans, 1917]
18. Henriëtte Bosmans, Concertino for piano and orchestra (1928, The Netherlands)
Henriette Bosmans is considered one of the most important female Dutch composers of the 20th century. Before the war, Henriette Bosmans already enjoyed a well-established reputation in Dutch musical life, especially as a pianist. During the war she was not allowed to appear in public and had to support herself with underground house concerts. Her considerable oeuvre includes orchestral works, chamber music and many songs. Her most famous piece is the sparkling and lyrical Concertino for piano and orchestra (1928), created during the time she took composition lessons with Willem Pijper. Bosmans, as a formidable pianist, promoted the concertino herself through many successful performances. It has a French flavor (Poulenc?) as all Dutch music from that time, but there are also Oriental elements. Read more about Henriette Bosmans in my article on her cello sonata in the series Best Woman Composers.
[Performance listened to: Ronald Brautigam with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ed Spanjaard]
19. John Foulds, Dynamic Triptych for Piano and Orchestra (1929, Britain)
This is a truly magnificent concerto that for long years was completely forgotten. Foulds was popular in the 1920s for his A World Requiem in commemoration of the war dead, but was soon forgotten after his death from cholera in India in 1939. The Dynamic Triptych was only performed once (in 1933) and then lay forgotten until Howard Shelley dusted it off for this Lyrita performance in 1984. It is dramatic and experimental music, written under the influence of exotic music theories. The first movement is called "Dynamic Mode," the second "Dynamic Timbre" and the third "Dynamic Rhythm." The writing for both piano and orchestra is exuberant. The slow movement is the most romantic, Foulds inhabits a very shadowy world and the use of slithery quarter-tones is really disturbing in effect. The last movement is a sparkling dance. Jazz plays its part here, we hear cross-rhythms and changes of meter, clusters and complex chords. It is virtuoso music full of unstoppable energy which will blow the mind of anyone who hears it for the first time. Foulds may well be one of the most undervalued composers of the 20th century.
[Performance listened to: Howard Shelley and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley on Lyrita]
20. Maurice Ravel, Piano Concerto in D for the Left Hand (1929–30)
In 1929, a year after completing the Bolero, Ravel received two commissions to write a concerto at about the same time. The first assignment came from orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitzky on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This commission resulted in the Piano Concerto in G. The second commission came from Paul Wittgenstein. This pianist, brother of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, had lost his right arm in World War I. He nevertheless wanted to continue playing as a performing pianist and encouraged many great composers to write a work for the left hand: so did Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten and Sergei Prokofiev. The latter wrote his Fourth Piano Concerto (for the left hand) in response to that request.
The Concerto for the Left Hand is is a violent and dramatic work, one of Ravel's most rhythmic and energetic. As Ravel mentioned: "In a work of this nature, it is essential that the texture not give the impression of being thinner than that of a part written for two hands. So I have resorted to a style that is much closer to the rather imposing style of traditional concertos. After the first part of the piece, an episode in the character of an improvisation appears, which gives rise to jazz music. It is only later that one realizes that the episode in jazz style is actually built on the themes of the first part." Percussion plays a fundamental and haunting role throughout the work. The concerto is also a work of sonic outbursts, the likes of which Ravel rarely produces. For the soloist, facing this monument can be a challenge: the solo part is extremely difficult, the left hand alone having to cover the territory of both hands.
It is a work that is both exhilarating and fatalistic, a whirlwind of anxiety and perplexity in the face of a world that, at the dawn of the 1930s, seems once again destined for disaster. The end is truly unforgettable: the piano, which has just completed a cadenza in chiaroscuro, intensely poetic, of formidable technical difficulty, is finally joined and swallowed by the orchestra, to die under a final pounding of the percussion.
On YouTube: Yuja Wang with Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Lionel Bringuier conducting:
21. Reynaldo Hahn, Piano Concerto in E major (1931, France)
Reynaldo Hahn (1874 – 1947) was a Venezuelan-born French composer. Following the success of his song "Si mes vers avaient des ailes" (If my verses had wings), written when he was aged 14, he became a prominent member of fin de siècle French society. Among his closest friends were Sarah Bernhardt and Marcel Proust. After the First World War, in which he served in the army, Hahn adapted to new musical and theatrical trends and enjoyed successes with his first opérette, Ciboulette (1923). During the Second World War Hahn, who was of Jewish descent, took refuge in Monaco, returning to Paris in 1945 where he was appointed director of the Opéra.
Hahn was a prolific composer. His vocal works include secular and sacred pieces, lyric scenes, cantatas, oratorios, operas, comic operas, and operettas. Orchestral works include concertos ballets, tone poems, incidental music for plays and films. He wrote a range of chamber music, and piano works.
The Piano Concerto is a light-weight piece (the second movement lasts less than three minutes), but also an utterly charming work with a lyrical opening theme that leads to variations full of sparkling contrasts.
"The Piano Concerto’s opening movement, marked Improvisation: modéré, begins in an almost devotional manner before broadening out to embrace material that has a rather cosy French provincial rustic flavor. The brief central Dance: vif, is full of wit and sparkle. The substantial final movement is cast in the form of a triptych: first a lovely, sighing Schumann-like Rêverie that truly haunts; the tempo accelerates into the unruly self-mocking Toccata and the whole is rounded off with a return, after a cadenza, to a dignified close with an allusion to the opening material. A delightful work." (From the booklet by Stephen Coombs)
[Performance listened to: Stephen Coombs with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Jean-Yves Ossonce on Hyperion]
Reynaldo Hahn (1874 – 1947) was a Venezuelan-born French composer. Following the success of his song "Si mes vers avaient des ailes" (If my verses had wings), written when he was aged 14, he became a prominent member of fin de siècle French society. Among his closest friends were Sarah Bernhardt and Marcel Proust. After the First World War, in which he served in the army, Hahn adapted to new musical and theatrical trends and enjoyed successes with his first opérette, Ciboulette (1923). During the Second World War Hahn, who was of Jewish descent, took refuge in Monaco, returning to Paris in 1945 where he was appointed director of the Opéra.
Hahn was a prolific composer. His vocal works include secular and sacred pieces, lyric scenes, cantatas, oratorios, operas, comic operas, and operettas. Orchestral works include concertos ballets, tone poems, incidental music for plays and films. He wrote a range of chamber music, and piano works.
The Piano Concerto is a light-weight piece (the second movement lasts less than three minutes), but also an utterly charming work with a lyrical opening theme that leads to variations full of sparkling contrasts.
"The Piano Concerto’s opening movement, marked Improvisation: modéré, begins in an almost devotional manner before broadening out to embrace material that has a rather cosy French provincial rustic flavor. The brief central Dance: vif, is full of wit and sparkle. The substantial final movement is cast in the form of a triptych: first a lovely, sighing Schumann-like Rêverie that truly haunts; the tempo accelerates into the unruly self-mocking Toccata and the whole is rounded off with a return, after a cadenza, to a dignified close with an allusion to the opening material. A delightful work." (From the booklet by Stephen Coombs)
[Performance listened to: Stephen Coombs with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Jean-Yves Ossonce on Hyperion]
[Reynaldo Hahn in 1906]
22. Ralph Vaughan Williams, Piano Concerto in C (1926-31, Britain)
A concerto full of drama and turbulence, like Vaughan Williams' music from the same period as the Fourth Symphony and Job. The three movements are titled Toccata, Romanza and Fuga chromatica con Finale alla Tedesca. The Toccata is characterized by two "blocks" of music, a driving piano solo set against a rising theme in the orchestra with which the concerto starts, and a more scherzo-like idea, shared between piano and orchestra. A thunderous piano cadenza forms the link to the slow movement which starts without a break, a delicate Romanza. The third movement again follows without a break and begins with a fugue that is linked to a waltz finale. In this concerto, Vaughan Williams treated the piano as a percussion instrument, as did Bartók and Hindemith during this period - the orchestral texture is at times very thick. The composer took the advice of well-meaning critics to rework his music into a Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1946), adding more texture to the piano parts, but today the original version is considered as superior.
[Performance listened to: Howard Shelley and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley on Lyrita]
[Constant Lambert by Christopher Wood]
23. Constance Lambert, Concerto for Piano and Nine Players (1931, Britain)
This a deliciously jazzy concerto, but one which also becomes unexpectedly serious as the music advances. The nine players are flute (doubling piccolo), three clarinets, trumpet, trombone, cello, string bass and percussion, leading to contrast-rich music as in the Stravinsky and Janacek concertos. It is a starkly incisive, even abrasive work. The style of this concerto moves away from the "symphonic jazz" of Gershwin to something much more tense and urban, with popular and formal elements of composition closely integrated, rhythms jagged and extreme, and harmony sometimes approaching atonalism. The three movements are called Overture, Intermède and Finale (Lugubre) - and the ending is sad and silent. It has been called "a form of musical parable that investigates every phrase of language, to discard them all, little by little, so as to arrive at something which comes near to an invitation to silence. All this by a route that starts from an apparent rhythmical vital attack, progressing to the final desolate notes of the blues - subtitled "Lugubre" - through all of which, from time to time, can be recognized the echoes of jazz..." (from the sleeve notes by Silvio D'Amicone). A very original work.
Lambert is also known from his book Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline (1934), which remains one of the wittiest, if most highly opinionated, volumes of music criticism in the English language. Lambert was not happy about twelve tone music or even the Neo-classicist works of Stravinsky, but professes to be a great fan of Sibelius - and jazz.
[Performance listened to: Alessandro de Curtis with Harmonia Ensemble on ASdisc]
24. Francis Poulenc, Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in D minor (1932, France)Lambert is also known from his book Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline (1934), which remains one of the wittiest, if most highly opinionated, volumes of music criticism in the English language. Lambert was not happy about twelve tone music or even the Neo-classicist works of Stravinsky, but professes to be a great fan of Sibelius - and jazz.
[Performance listened to: Alessandro de Curtis with Harmonia Ensemble on ASdisc]
From beginning to end a very entertaining concerto. The concerto's recurring moto perpetuo, modally inflected figurations are clearly inspired by Poulenc's encounter with a Balinese gamelan at the 1931 Exposition Coloniale de Paris. Additionally, the work's instrumentation and "jazzy" effects are reminiscent of Ravel's G major Concerto, which was premiered at Paris in January 1932.
In the Allegro ma non troppo in D minor, Poulenc chooses to bypass the conventions of sonata allegro in the opening movement in favor of ternary form, with a slower middle section. If this first movement is meant to evoke Mozart, it is the blithe composer of the delightful Divertimenti and Serenades. Between the two fast movements, the Larghetto's graceful, classically simple melody and gentle, regular accompaniment is reminiscent of the Romanze of Mozart's D minor Piano Concerto, K. 466. Poulenc commented, "In the Larghetto of this Concerto I permitted myself, for the first theme, to return to Mozart, because I have a fondness for the melodic line and I prefer Mozart to all other musicians. The final Allegro molto is again in D minor. It is a syncretic Rondo that merges the insouciance of a Parisian music hall and the mesmerizing sonorities of a gamelan orchestra. Its scintillating patter and energetic rhythms produce a vivacious, effervescent effect. Poulenc creates a dramatic yet charming dialogue between the two keyboards and the supporting orchestra ensemble. Unusually, his orchestration foregrounds the woodwinds, brass and percussion, relegating the strings to a secondary role.
[Performance listened to: Francois-Rene Duchable and Jean-Philippe Collard with Rotterdam Philharmonic conducted by James Conlon on Erato]
Best Piano Concertos from the Twentieth Century: Part One (1904-1932)
Best Piano Concertos from the Twentieth Century: Part Two (1926-1948)
Best Piano Concertos from the Twentieth Century: Part Three (1951-2018)Classical Music Index