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Mar 22, 2023 · Mozart – Piano Concerto No.21 (Elvira Madigan) Heading into the height of the classical era, Mozart’s utterly delightful Piano Concerto No.21 was written in 1785. He premiered this piece himself, before treating his captive audience to some of his famous improvisations.
We compare the best complete recorded cycles of all 27 of Mozart's sublime Piano Concertos. Discover more about the great composers and works with BBC Music.
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- Messiaen: Turangalila
- Busoni: Piano Concerto
- Bach: Keyboard Concerto in D Minor
- Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2
- Ligeti: Piano Concerto
- Grieg: Piano Concerto
- Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3
- Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major
- Chopin: Piano Concerto No.1
- Schumann: Piano Concerto
It’s not called a concerto, but Olivier Messiaen’s gargantuan ten-movement symphony to love, sex, God, and the universe features a solo piano part that could defeat any concerto on home turf. It was premiered in Boston in 1949, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, and was written for the French pianist Yvonne Loriod, whom Messiaen later married. Turanga...
Weighing in at 70 minutes and featuring a male chorus in the final movement – one of a mere handful of piano concertos that incorporates such an element – Ferruccio Busoni’s concerto, written between 1901 and 1904, can lay claim to being one of the biggest in the repertoire. That extends to the orchestration, which includes triple woodwind and a la...
This may be a controversial choice since Bach’s concertos are really for harpsichord. But that doesn’t mean they can’t also sound a million dollars on the modern piano, and in the 21st century, there is scant reason to confine them to quarters. There is a healthy number of them, all breathtakingly beautiful; among them, the D minor concerto edges a...
Nobody twinkles in quite the same way as Camille Saint-Saëns. His Piano Concerto No.2, one of the greatest piano concertos, was written (like Grieg’s) in 1868 and was once described as a progression “from Bach to Offenbach.” It opens, sure enough, with a solo piano cadenza that is not many miles away from the style of a baroque organ improvisation....
Written in the 1980s, György Ligeti’s Piano Concertois a true contemporary classic. In five movements, it is by turns playful, profound, and startling, often all three at once. Among its generous complement of percussion are castanets, siren whistle, flexatone, tomtoms, bongos, and many more; its musical techniques are every bit as lavish and inclu...
Grieg’s sole Piano Concerto (1868), one of the greatest piano concertos, made its publisher, Edition Peters, such a healthy profit that they gave its composer a holiday flat in their Leipzig premises. The concerto’s wide appeal is evident from the first note to the last: the dramatic opening drum-roll and solo plunge across the keyboard, the lavish...
Bela Bartók’s last piano concerto was written for his wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, intended as her birthday present in 1945. The composer was seriously ill with leukemia and it killed him before he could complete the work; his friend Tibor Serly was tasked with orchestrating the final 17 bars. The concerto is collegial, serene, lively, even Mozarti...
Here the jazz age comes to Paris with iridescent orchestration, split-second timing, and the occasional crack of a whip. Writing in 1929-31, Ravelwas still relishing his recent trip to New York, during which his friend George Gershwin had taken him to the jazz clubs in Harlem; the impact is palpable. “Jazz is a very rich and vital source of inspira...
The lyricism, delicacy, and balance required in Chopin’s two concertos can show a pianist at his or her finest; as in Mozart, there is nowhere to hide, and any deficiency in touch or control from the soloist is instantly shown up. Nevertheless, this music is not just about pianistic proficiency: it’s hard to find any other romantic concertos that c...
Premiered in 1845, with Clara Schumann at the piano and Felix Mendelssohn conducting, this was the only one of Robert Schumann’s attempts at a piano concerto that made it to final, full-sized form. Its intimacy, tenderness, and ceaselessly imaginative ebb and flow open a window into the composer’s psyche and especially his devotion to Clara, whom h...
- Jessica Duchen
- 21 min
Mozart composed 23 works (plus 7 arrangements) for piano and orchestra from 1773 to 1791. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 's concertos for piano and orchestra are numbered from 1 to 27. The first four numbered concertos and three unnumbered concertos are early works that are arrangements of keyboard sonatas by various contemporary composers.
Feb 9, 2019 · Piano Concerto No. 24 is actually one of only two piano concertos Mozart wrote in a minor key (the other is Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor). Completed on March 24, 1786, it is the largest of his piano concertos in terms of instrumentation; its score was written for one flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets ...
