The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, composed by Edvard Grieg in 1868, was the only concerto Grieg completed. It is one of his most popular works and is among the most popular of the genre.
Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and virtuoso pianist. At the height of his fame in the 1830s and 1840s he was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, among the leading pianists in Paris, a city in which he spent virtually his entire life.
A funeral march, as a musical genre, is a march, usually in a minor key, in a slow "simple duple" metre, imitating the solemn pace of a funeral procession. Some such marches are often considered appropriate for use during funerals and other sombre occasions, the best-known example being the third movement of Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2. Handel uses the name dead march, also used for marches played by a military band at military funerals.
C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E♭, F, G, A♭, and B♭. Its key signature consists of three flats. Its relative major is E♭ major and its parallel major is C major.
F minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D♭, and E♭. Its key signature consists of four flats. Its relative major is A-flat major and its parallel major is F major. Its enharmonic equivalent, E-sharp minor, has six sharps and the double sharp F, which makes it impractical to use.
Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Piano Sonata No. 12 in A♭ major, Op. 26, in 1800–1801, around the same time as he completed his First Symphony. He dedicated the sonata to Prince Karl von Lichnowsky, who had been his patron since 1792.
B-flat minor is a minor scale based on B♭, consisting of the pitches B♭, C, D♭, E♭, F, G♭, and A♭. Its key signature has five flats. Its relative major is D-flat major and its parallel major is B-flat major. Its enharmonic equivalent, A-sharp minor, which would contain seven sharps, is not normally used.
The Symphony No. 100 in G major, Hoboken I/100, is the eighth of the twelve London symphonies written by Joseph Haydn and completed in 1793 or 1794. It is popularly known as the Military Symphony.
Jaroslav Řídký was a Czech composer, conductor, harpist, and music teacher.
Hyacinthe Jadin was a French composer who came from a musical family. His uncle Georges Jadin was a composer in Versailles and Paris, along with his father Jean Jadin, who had played bassoon for the French Royal Orchestra. He was one of five musical brothers, the best known of whom was Louis-Emmanuel Jadin.
Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 119, is written in two movements, like his Fourth Piano Concerto. It was composed in 1902 and is dedicated to the Dutch cellist, Joseph Hollman, who gave the first performance on February 5, 1905 in Paris. The Second Concerto is much more virtuosic than the First, but does not possess the thematic inventiveness and harmonic intricacy of the First.
Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale, Op. 15, is the fourth and last symphony by the French composer Hector Berlioz, first performed on 28 July 1840 in Paris. It is one of the earliest examples of a symphony composed for military band.
An organ concerto is a piece of music, an instrumental concerto for a pipe organ soloist with an orchestra. The form first evolved in the 18th century, when composers including Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach wrote organ concertos with small orchestras, and with solo parts which rarely call for the organ pedal board. During the Classical period the organ concerto became popular in many places, especially in Bavaria, Austria and Bohemia, reaching a position of being almost an integral part of the church music tradition of jubilus character. From the Romantic era fewer works are known. Finally, there are some 20th- and 21st-century examples, of which the concerto by Francis Poulenc has entered the basic repertoire, and is quite frequently played.
Concerto for Solo Piano is a 3-movement solo piano piece written by Charles-Valentin Alkan. The pieces are part of a 12 piece cycle entitled Douze études dans tous les tons mineurs, published in 1857. With sections marked "Tutti", "Solo" and "Piano", the piece requires the soloist to present the voices of both the orchestra and the soloist. The pianist Jack Gibbons comments: "The style and form of the music take on a monumental quality—rich, thickly set textures and harmonies ... conjure up the sound world of a whole orchestra and tax the performer, both physically and mentally, to the limit."
Marie-Alexis de Castillon de Saint-Victor was a French composer.
Carl Nielsen's Wind Quintet, or as indicated by the original score, the Kvintet for Flöte, Obo, Klarinet, Horn og Fagot, Op. 43, was composed early in 1922 in Gothenburg, Sweden, where it was first performed privately at the home of Herman and Lisa Mannheimer on 30 April 1922. The first public performance was on 9 October 1922 in the smaller hall at the Odd Fellows Mansion in Copenhagen. It is considered a staple of the repertoire for wind quintet.
The Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor, Op. 45, is a composition for solo piano and orchestra in four movements by the American composer Amy Beach. The work was composed between September 1898 and September 1899. It was first performed in Boston on April 7, 1900, with the composer as the soloist and the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing under the conductor Wilhelm Gericke. The composition is dedicated to the musician Teresa Carreño and was the first piano concerto by an American female composer.
