Piano Concerto (Lutosławski)

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The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is a composition for solo piano and orchestra by the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski. The music was commissioned by the Salzburg Festival. It was first performed at the festival on August 19, 1988 by the pianist Krystian Zimerman and the Austrian Radio Orchestra under the direction of the composer. Lutosławski dedicated the piece to Zimerman. [1]

Piano musical instrument

The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings.

Orchestra large instrumental ensemble

An orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families, including bowed string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass, brass instruments such as the horn, trumpet, trombone and tuba, woodwinds such as the flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, and percussion instruments such as the timpani, bass drum, triangle, snare drum and cymbals, each grouped in sections. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments.

Witold Lutosławski Polish composer and conductor

Witold Roman Lutosławski was a Polish composer and orchestral conductor. He was one of the major European composers of the 20th century, and one of the preeminent Polish musicians during his last three decades. He earned many international awards and prizes. His compositions include four symphonies, a Concerto for Orchestra, a string quartet, instrumental works, concertos, and orchestral song cycles.

Contents

Composition

Structure

The concerto has a duration of roughly 27 minutes and is cast in four movements played without pause. The first movement comprises four sections, the first and third of which Lutosławski described as possessing "nonchalant" motifs. Conversely, he described the movement's second and fourth sections as "filled with a broad cantilena, finally leading to the highpoint of the whole movement."

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession. A movement is a section, "a major structural unit perceived as the result of the coincidence of relatively large numbers of structural phenomena".

A unit of a larger work that may stand by itself as a complete composition. Such divisions are usually self-contained. Most often the sequence of movements is arranged fast-slow-fast or in some other order that provides contrast.

Motif (music) short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition

In music, a motif(pronunciation) (help·info) is a short musical phrase, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition: "The motive is the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity".

The composer called the second movement a "'moto perpetuo,' a quick 'chase' by the piano against the background of the orchestra which ends by calmly subsiding in preparation for the third movement."

In music, perpetuum mobile, moto perpetuo (Italian), mouvement perpétuel (French), movimento perpétuo (Portuguese) movimiento perpetuo (Spanish), carries two distinct meanings: first, as pieces or parts of pieces of music characterised by a continuous stream of notes, usually at a rapid tempo; and also as whole pieces, or large parts of pieces, which are to be played in a repititious fashion, often an indefinite number of times.

The third movement begins with a recitative for the soloist, out of which a largo theme develops. The orchestra is introduced later in the movement, contrasting the beginning with "moments of a more sudden, dramatic character." Finally, the orchestra again subsides and the cantilena returns, being performed by the soloist alone.

The structure of the fourth movement alludes to a Baroque chaconne. Its theme is played by the orchestra and repeated several times while the pianist presents different episodes. The two ideas are cast in a "chain-form" and thus do not begin or end concurrently until near the end of the movement. A shortened version of the theme is played by the orchestra one last time before a brief piano recitative and coda "presto" conclude the piece. [1]

Baroque cultural movement, starting around 1600

The Baroque is a highly ornate and often extravagant style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th until the mid-18th century. It followed the Renaissance style and preceded the Rococo and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well. The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep colour, grandeur and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain and Portugal, then to Austria and southern Germany. By the 1730s, it had evolved into an even more flamboyant style, called rocaille or Rococo, which appeared in France and central Europe until the mid to late 18th century.

Chaconne musical form

A chaconne is a type of musical composition popular in the baroque era when it was much used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line which offered a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention. In this it closely resembles the passacaglia.

Subject (music) musical melody on which a composition is based

In music, a subject is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based. In forms other than the fugue, this may be known as the theme.

Instrumentation

The work is scored for a solo piano and a large orchestra consisting of three flutes (doubling piccolo), three oboes, three clarinets (doubling E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet), three bassoons (doubling contrabassoon), four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, three percussionists, harp, and strings. [1]

Western concert flute transverse woodwind instrument made of metal or wood

The Western concert flute is a transverse (side-blown) woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, flute player, or (rarely) fluter.

Piccolo small musical instrument of the flute family

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The modern piccolo has most of the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written. This gave rise to the name ottavino, which the instrument is called in the scores of Italian composers. It is also called flauto piccolo or flautino.

Oboe musical instrument of the woodwind family

Oboes belong to the classification of double reed woodwind instruments. Oboes are usually made of wood, but there are also oboes made of synthetic materials. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A soprano oboe measures roughly 65 cm long, with metal keys, a conical bore and a flared bell. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed at a sufficient air pressure, causing it to vibrate with the air column. The distinctive tone is versatile and has been described as "bright". When the word oboe is used alone, it is generally taken to mean the treble instrument rather than other instruments of the family, such as the bass oboe, the cor anglais, or oboe d'amore

Reception

The piano concerto has been praised by musicians and critics alike, many of whom have considered it to be one of the finest piano concertos of the 20th century. [2] [3] [4]

Piano concerto musical composition for piano and orchestra

A piano concerto is a type of concerto, a solo composition in the Classical music genre which is composed for a piano player, which is typically accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble. Piano concertos are typically virtuoso showpieces which require an advanced level of technique on the instrument, including melodic lines interspersed with rapid scales, arpeggios, chords, complex contrapuntal parts and other challenging material. When piano concertos are performed by a professional concert pianist, a large grand piano is almost always used, as the grand piano has a fuller tone and more projection than an upright piano. Piano concertos are typically written out in music notation, including sheet music for the pianist, orchestra parts for the orchestra members, and a full score for the conductor, who leads the orchestra in the accompaniment of the soloist.

Richard Fairman of the Financial Times described the work as "elusive and restless" and "like a siren luring the inquisitive listener." He added, "Nothing is obvious in this airborne music, as its ideas gather and disperse at speed, like swarming insects, only touching the ground in the last few minutes." [5] Andrew Achenbach of Gramophone said the piece "serves up a wealth of a succinct, characteristically deft and urgently communicative invention in four linked movements, while consciously harking back to figures from the past (in this instance Bartók, Szymanowski and Prokofiev)." [6] Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote, "With its large, sweeping gestures and dramatic interplay between the soloist and the orchestra, the piano concerto pays homage to this most popular of concert music genres. Yet even while writing a public piece hardly less accessible than the concertos of Prokofiev, Lutoslawski finds ingenious ways to make the music fresh, original and intellectually challenging." [2]

Andrew Clements of The Guardian said it "ranks alongside Ligeti's utterly different concerto as the most important for piano and orchestra since Bartók." [3] The pianists Leif Ove Andsnes and Louis Lortie have similarly considered it to be one of the great piano concertos of the late 20th century. [2] [4] Lortie said of the piece, "I like it because Lutoslawski isn't trying to go against the nature of the instrument, the way some modern composers do. Lutoslawski was a fine pianist himself, and I think he wanted to create something he himself would enjoy playing." [4]

See also

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The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is a musical composition by the American composer Aaron Copland. The work was commissioned by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky who was then music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was first performed on January 28, 1927, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Koussevitzky with the composer himself as the soloist. The piece is dedicated to Copland's patron Alma Morgenthau Wertheim.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lutosławski, Witold (1988). "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra". G. Schirmer Inc. Retrieved June 30, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 Tommasini, Anthony (January 14, 2002). "MUSIC REVIEW; Energetic Champion for a Modern Concerto". The New York Times . Retrieved June 30, 2016.
  3. 1 2 Clements, Andrew (August 5, 2015). "Lutosławski: Piano Concerto; Symphony No 2 CD review – a glorious affirmation of its place in the concerto cannon". The Guardian . Retrieved June 30, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 Hewett, Ivan (August 6, 2013). "A new way with the piano concerto". The Daily Telegraph . Telegraph Media Group . Retrieved June 30, 2016.
  5. ↑ Fairman, Richard (August 14, 2015). "Lutoslawski: Piano Concerto — review". Financial Times . Retrieved June 30, 2016.
  6. ↑ Achenbach, Andrew (September 2015). "LUTOSŁAWSKI Piano Concerto. Symphony No 2". Gramophone . Retrieved June 30, 2016.
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