| Piano Concerto | |
|---|---|
| by Francis Poulenc | |
 | |
| Key | C-sharp minor |
| Catalogue | FP 146 |
| Composed | 1949 |
| Movements | 3 |
| Premiere | |
| Date | 6 January 1950 |
| Location | Boston |
| Conductor | Charles Munch |
| Performers | Boston Symphony Orchestra |
The Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor, FP 146, by French composer Francis Poulenc is the last of his five concertos. Written in 1949 on commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, it has three movements and a duration of about 19 minutes.
The tuneful, energetic concerto was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to restore relations between Paris, Poulenc's hometown, and the United States after the Second World War. [1] It was premiered by the BSO with Charles Munch conducting and the composer at the piano on 6 January 1950, [2] but was not particularly well received. It was noted that there was "more sympathy than real enthusiasm," which the composer attributed to the notion that the audience had listened to too much Sibelius. [3] One critic wrote in Le Figaro: "Certainly it isn’t a concerto at all but a little picture of manners, done up by a minor master." [4] But Poulenc wrote: "I lead an austere existence in this very Puritan town." [5] [6]
Each of the concerto's three movements is shorter than the one before:
The first, reminiscent of various Rachmaninoff themes, meanders here and there, never quite making up its mind; there are subdued hints of the approaching Poulenc opera Dialogues of the Carmelites. [4] The Andante con moto acquires a certain airy repose after its tender and sad start. [4] In the last movement, in hopes of appealing to American audiences, Poulenc incorporates the tune of Stephen Foster's Swanee River [7] (some listeners alternatively believe that this section is in fact quoting the 15th century French song A la claire fontaine [2] ); Poulenc also incorporates various Brazilian Maxixe rhythms. [2]
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the piano suite Trois mouvements perpétuels (1919), the ballet Les biches (1923), the Concert champêtre (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1957), and the Gloria (1959) for soprano, choir, and orchestra.
Concerto in F is a composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and orchestra which is closer in form to a traditional concerto than his earlier jazz-influenced Rhapsody in Blue. It was written in 1925 on a commission from the conductor and director Walter Damrosch. It is just over half an hour long.
Concert champêtre, FP 49, is a harpsichord concerto by Francis Poulenc, which also exists in a version for piano solo with very slight changes in the solo part.
Theophil Franz Xaver Scharwenka was a German pianist, composer and teacher of Polish descent. He was the brother of Ludwig Philipp Scharwenka (1847–1917), who was also a composer and teacher of music.
Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, was written in 1830–31, around the same time as his fourth symphony ("Italian"), and premiered in Munich on 17 October 1831. This concerto was composed in Rome during a travel in Italy after the composer met the pianist Delphine von Schauroth in Munich. The concerto was dedicated to her. Mendelssohn attended one party after another in Munich in October 1831, the month of the premiere, but he also played chamber music and taught double counterpoint. He performed the piece himself at the premiere, which also included performances of his Symphony No. 1 and the Overture from Midsummer Night's Dream. He had already written a piano concerto in A minor with string accompaniment (1822) and two concertos with two pianos (1823–24).
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22 by Camille Saint-Saëns was composed in 1868 and is probably Saint-Saëns' most popular piano concerto. It was dedicated to Madame A. de Villers. At the première on 13 May the composer was the soloist and Anton Rubinstein conducted the orchestra. Saint-Saëns wrote the concerto in three weeks and had very little time to prepare for the première; consequently, the piece was not initially successful. The capricious changes in style provoked Zygmunt Stojowski to quip that it "begins with Bach and ends with Offenbach."
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26, is a piano concerto by Sergei Prokofiev. It was completed in 1921 using sketches first started in 1913.
The Gloria by Francis Poulenc, FP 177, scored for soprano solo, large orchestra, and chorus, is a setting of the Gloria text from the mass ordinary. One of Poulenc's most celebrated works, it was commissioned by the Koussevitsky Foundation in honor of Sergei Koussevitzky and his wife Natalia, the namesakes of the foundation.
Dumka is a musical term introduced from the Ukrainian language, with cognates in other Slavic languages. The word dumka literally means "thought". Originally, it was the diminutive form of the Ukrainian term duma, pl. dumy, "a Slavic epic ballad … generally thoughtful or melancholic in character". Classical composers drew on the harmonic patterns in the folk music to inform their more formal classical compositions.
The Concerto for Clarinet, Viola, and Orchestra in E minor, Op. 88, is a composition by Max Bruch which was composed in 1911. It premiered on 5 March 1912 in Wilhelmshaven by the piece's dedicatees, violist Willy Hess and the composer's son and clarinet soloist, Max Felix Bruch. The score however was published 23 years after the composer's death, finally being released in 1942.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed his Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G, Op. 55 in 1884, writing it concurrently with his Concert Fantasia in G, Op. 56, for piano and orchestra. The originally intended opening movement of the suite, Contrastes, instead became the closing movement of the fantasia. Both works were also intended initially as more mainstream compositions than they became; the fantasia was intended as a piano concerto, while the suite was conceived as a symphony.
The Concerto pour orgue, cordes et timbales in G minor, FP 93, is an organ concerto composed by Francis Poulenc between 1934 and 1938. It has become one of the most frequently performed pieces of the genre not written in the Baroque period.
Francis Poulenc's Concerto pour deux pianos in D minor, FP 61, was composed over the period of three months in the summer of 1932. It is often described as the climax of Poulenc's early period. The composer wrote to the Belgian musicologist Paul Collaer: "You will see for yourself what an enormous step forward it is from my previous work and that I am really entering my great period." The concerto was commissioned by and dedicated to the Princess Edmond de Polignac, an American-born arts patron to whom many early-20th-century masterpieces are dedicated, including Stravinsky's Renard, Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte, Kurt Weill's Second Symphony, and Satie's Socrate. Her Paris salon was a gathering place for the musical avant-garde.
Fantaisie for piano and orchestra (L.73/CD.72), is a composition for piano and orchestra by French composer Claude Debussy. It was composed between October 1889 and April 1890, but only received its first public performance in 1919, a year after Debussy's death. The work is dedicated to the pianist René Chansarel, who had been scheduled to play the solo part for the cancelled premiere in 1890.
Jules Massenet's Piano Concerto is a 1902 work for piano solo and orchestra. It is scored for a typical-sized ensemble of the time. The concerto was performed in 1903 by Louis Diémer at the Conservatoire de Paris. After the premiere, it quickly fell into obscurity and is seldom heard today.
The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is a piano concerto by the American composer John Corigliano. The work was commissioned by the San Antonio Symphony and was first performed on April 7, 1968, by the pianist Hilde Somer and the San Antonio Symphony under the direction of Victor Alessandro. The piece is dedicated to John Atkins.
The Trio pour hautbois, basson et piano, FP 43, by Francis Poulenc is a three-movement chamber work, composed between 1924 and 1926, and premiered in the latter year.
Aubade, a choreographic concerto for piano and 18 instruments, is a work of Francis Poulenc premiered in 1929. It was conceived as a ballet, but is more often played as a chamber piano concerto.
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