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Mar 22, 2023 · From the J.S. Bach keyboard works of the Baroque era to Bartók’s note-splitting masterpiece of the 20th century, here are some of the greatest piano concertos ever to have been written.
Feb 25, 2024 · Fri, Feb 23, 8 pm. Straz Center. Sat, Feb 24, 8 pm. Mahaffey Theater. Sun, Feb 25, 7:30 pm. Ruth Eckerd Hall. Michael Francis conducts Beethoven’s final and most heroic piano concerto, filled with the grandeur befitting its nickname, “Emperor.”
Sep 13, 2021 · Of the five most-often performed piano concertos, four of them were written by virtuoso composer-pianists: Beethoven, Liszt, and R. Schumann. Here are five piano concertos that continue to inspire today’s most talented pianists and audiences. No. 1: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor” (215 performances)
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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
- Sergei Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 2. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is universally regarded as a work of genius, a compositional masterpiece.
- Clara Schumann – Piano Concerto. Clara Schumann was one of the most revered pianists of the 19th century and an exceptionally gifted composer. Astonishingly, Clara Schumann began writing this piece at just 13 years of age.
- Claude Debussy – Clair de lune. You don’t have to be a classical music lover to appreciate the rare beauty of Claude Debussy’s Clair de lune. Even if you don’t recognize the title, you know the composition; it’s featured in many movies and TV shows, most notably, a famous scene from the blockbuster “Ocean’s Eleven” (or Twilight, if you prefer).
- Johannes Brahms – Piano Concerto No. 2. Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 came more than 20 years after his first, but it was worth the wait by all accounts.
Here are some of the greatest piano concertos in the classical repertoire. Immerse yourself in classical music at classical-music.com.
The earliest recording of any section of the Piano Concerto was made in 1908, a mere eight months after Grieg’s death, by his friend Percy Grainger, who made a 10-inch disc for The Gramophone Company of the first-movement cadenza (APR, 4/11 – how he must have kicked himself for smudging the single A natural, seven notes in!).
