Supposing you’re at a shoe store and you’ve got free rein to pick out the slinkiest, most stratospherically-heeled jobs on the rack, however what you really need is an efficient pair of mountaineering trainers… Oh, and might you convey your self to go away the purple suede slingbacks behind? That is reasonably like attempting to decide on the highest ten finest piano concertos from a repertoire so wealthy that it may preserve us completely happy listening to nothing else for the remainder of the 12 months. I’ve subsequently picked 15, however some ace favorites are nonetheless lacking, and I’m horrified to search out that the checklist is all-male. My one rule is to incorporate just one concerto by every composer, however this does, naturally, provide the likelihood to discover the competitors from their different works too. And I’ve damaged the rule in any case… Scroll right down to discover our choice of the best piano concertos.
15: Messiaen: Turangalila
It’s not referred to as a concerto, however Olivier Messiaen’s gargantuan ten-movement symphony to like, intercourse, God, and the universe incorporates a solo piano half that might defeat any concerto on dwelling turf. It was premiered in Boston in 1949, carried out by Leonard Bernstein, and was written for the French pianist Yvonne Loriod, whom Messiaen later married. Turangalîla combines eclectic influences, together with Indian spirituality, Indonesian gamelan, and a synaesthetic fusion of colour with sound; and the composer tops the lot with an ondes martenot, the digital swoops of which made it a favourite within the scores of horror motion pictures. Yvonne’s sister Jeanne Loriod was this instrument’s chief exponent. Find it irresistible or detest it, Turangalîla stays a one-off expertise.
14: Busoni: Piano Concerto
Weighing in at 70 minutes and that includes a male refrain within the closing motion – certainly one of a mere handful of piano concertos that comes with such a component – Ferruccio Busoni’s concerto, written between 1901 and 1904, can lay declare to being one of many largest within the repertoire. That extends to the orchestration, which incorporates triple woodwind and a big percussion part. Happily, it’s not solely amount that it gives, however high quality too – however given the sheer weight of demand positioned on all involved, performances of it are comparatively uncommon.
13: Bach: Keyboard Concerto In D Minor
This can be a controversial selection since Bach’s concertos are actually for harpsichord. However that doesn’t imply they will’t additionally sound 1,000,000 {dollars} on the trendy piano, and within the twenty first century, there’s scant purpose to restrict them to quarters. There’s a wholesome variety of them, all breathtakingly lovely; amongst them, the D minor concerto edges forward for its sensible, toccata-like writing, its ebullient rhythms, and its poised, meditative gradual motion.
12: Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2
No one twinkles in fairly the identical means as Camille Saint-Saëns. His Piano Concerto No.2, one of many biggest piano concertos, was written (like Grieg’s) in 1868 and was as soon as described as a development “from Bach to Offenbach.” It opens, certain sufficient, with a solo piano cadenza that’s not many miles away from the fashion of a baroque organ improvisation. This leads right into a stormy opening motion, for which Saint-Saëns filched a theme by his star pupil, the younger Gabriel Fauré, who had put aside the choral work for which he had written it and didn’t appear to thoughts when his trainer turned it right into a smash hit. Subsequent comes a debonair scherzo and an irrepressible tarantella finale.
11: Ligeti: Piano Concerto
Written within the Eighties, György Ligeti’s Piano Concerto is a real modern basic. In 5 actions, it’s by turns playful, profound, and startling, usually all three without delay. Amongst its beneficiant complement of percussion are castanets, siren whistle, flexatone, tomtoms, bongos, and plenty of extra; its musical methods are each bit as lavish and embody, as an example, the usage of three time signatures without delay. As dazzlingly unique because the composer’s astonishing Etudes for solo piano, with which it shares some very important qualities, it deserves to be a part of each adventurous soloist’s repertoire.
10: Grieg: Piano Concerto
Grieg’s sole Piano Concerto (1868), one of many biggest piano concertos, made its writer, Version Peters, such a wholesome revenue that they gave its composer a vacation flat of their Leipzig premises. The concerto’s huge attraction is clear from the primary word to the final: the dramatic opening drum-roll and solo plunge throughout the keyboard, the lavish melodies with their roots in Norwegian people music… Furthermore, this concerto offered a construction that was copied by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, and Prokofiev, to call however three, the one which got here nearly to outline our notion of the “war-horse” piano concerto. An attention-grabbing opening; a giant tune within the finale that rises to final prominence; you discovered them right here in Bergen first.
9: Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3
Bela Bartók’s final piano concerto was written for his spouse, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, meant as her birthday current in 1945. The composer was critically ailing with leukemia and it killed him earlier than he may full the work; his pal Tibor Serly was tasked with orchestrating the ultimate 17 bars. The concerto is collegial, serene, full of life, even Mozartian in its sense of proportion and stability. It betrays no trace of the composer’s troubled exit from wartime Hungary and the struggles of his life in exile within the US.
8: Ravel: Piano Concerto In G Main
Right here the jazz age involves Paris with iridescent orchestration, split-second timing, and the occasional crack of a whip. Writing in 1929-31, Ravel was nonetheless relishing his current journey to New York, throughout which his pal George Gershwin had taken him to the jazz golf equipment in Harlem; the affect is palpable. “Jazz is a very rich and vital source of inspiration for modern composers, and I am astonished that so few Americans are influenced by it,” Ravel stated. The outstanding harmonic colours of the gradual motion are a results of “bitonality” – music written in two completely different keys on the similar time. However, don’t miss Ravel’s different concerto, for left hand solely, which was written for Paul Wittgenstein, who had misplaced his proper arm in World Struggle I.
7: Chopin: Piano Concerto No.1
The lyricism, delicacy, and stability required in Chopin’s two concertos can present a pianist at his or her best; as in Mozart, there’s nowhere to cover, and any deficiency in contact or management from the soloist is immediately proven up. However, this music is not only about pianistic proficiency: it’s arduous to search out another romantic concertos that comprise such totally real, guileless, enchanting, youthful poetry (Chopin was barely 20 on the time). Hear out for the piano’s duet with the saxophone-like bassoon within the gradual motion.
6: Schumann: Piano Concerto
Premiered in 1845, with Clara Schumann on the piano and Felix Mendelssohn conducting, this was the one certainly one of Robert Schumann’s makes an attempt at a piano concerto that made it to closing, full-sized type. Its intimacy, tenderness, and ceaselessly imaginative ebb and movement open a window into the composer’s psyche and particularly his devotion to Clara, whom he had married in 1840. The ultimate motion’s tough rhythms are clearly impressed by these of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto; the 2 works require an identical lightness, assault, readability, and enthusiasm.
5: Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2
Though a few of Prokofiev’s different piano concertos are extra usually carried out, the Piano Concerto No. 2, one of many biggest piano concertos, is essentially the most private and, in emotional phrases, has essentially the most to say. This rugged, rocky, devastating piece is the work of a younger and precocious composer and pianist (he was about 22) confronted with a horrible tragedy: certainly one of his closest associates, Maximilian Schmidthof, took his personal life in 1913. Prokofiev had already began work on the piece, however its trajectory was reworked. As if that was not dangerous sufficient, the manuscript was then destroyed in a fireplace following the Russian Revolution of 1917, and Prokofiev needed to reconstruct it. Lastly, the premiere happened in 1924 in Paris, with the composer as its soloist.
4: Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1
This concerto took two completely different varieties – symphony, then two-piano sonata – earlier than settling down as a concerto. It was profoundly affected by the destiny of Robert Schumann. Solely months after he and Clara had prolonged their friendship to the younger genius from Hamburg, Schumann suffered a devastating breakdown, tried suicide, and was thereafter incarcerated in a psychological asylum for the remainder of his days, dying there in 1856. The D minor concerto’s gradual motion has been proven to evoke the phrases “Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini”, suggesting that the work, accomplished in 1858, is Brahms’s private Requiem for his mentor. Additionally, hear Brahms’s huge, great-hearted, and totally completely different Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat main.
3: Mozart: Piano Concerto In C Minor, K491
Mozart’s 27 piano concertos comprise the biggest physique of piano concertos which might be usually heard in live performance halls, though (scandalously) a comparatively small handful are usually carried out. Solely two are in a minor key, and whereas the D minor K466 is the extra well-liked, the C minor is my private favourite for its huge emotional vary, its ceaseless stream of inspiration, and its extremely refined writing not just for the piano but in addition the woodwind, which nearly grow to be soloists in their very own proper, handled within the gradual motion nearly like an operatic ensemble.
2: Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2
Come on, don’t be imply – this concerto is good. It’s nearly unimaginable to fault one web page, one phrase, one word in one of many biggest piano concertos. The snobby view of it as sentimental is unlucky. Unhealthy performances typically convey it that means, however frankly, they’re mistaken; when you hear Rachmaninov’s personal recording, the piece comes over as cool and managed, containing dignity, valor, ardour, and poetry in equal measures. On this work, written in 1900-01, Rachmaninov got here again to composition after a interval of deep melancholy and artistic block. A course of hypnotherapy with Dr. Nikolai Dahl had helped to revive him to the rails, and his genius flamed again within the proverbial blaze of glory. Hear his different concertos too, in fact.
1: Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 – and No. 5 too
Composers have been attempting to beat Beethoven for 200 years. Few succeed. Selecting the most effective of his 5 piano concertos is an unenviable process – and so I recommend each his Fourth and Fifth concertos as equal crowning glories of the repertoire.
There’s something ineffable about Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 – an inward, questing, exploratory work that’s merely distinctive. The gradual motion, by which the piano meets the orchestra’s aggressive outbursts with tranquil reflection, has been likened – supposedly by Franz Liszt – to Orpheus taming the wild beasts. It was premiered in 1808 with Beethoven himself on the piano (and his pupil Carl Czerny reported that the good man’s efficiency included many extra notes than he had written down).
Beethoven started composing his ‘Emperor’ Piano Concerto No. 5 in 1809, whereas Vienna was beneath invasion from Napoleon’s forces for the second time. The primary public efficiency of the concerto, on the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Friedrich Schneider as soloist in November 1811, made a strong impression and the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung reported, “It is without doubt one of the most original, imaginative and effective, but also one of the most difficult of all existing concertos.” Beethoven’s closing piano concerto was not a regretful farewell from one whose legendary skills on the instrument had been foundering on the rocks of his deafness, however a surge of glory from a composer whose capability for reinventing himself confirmed itself in each piece. “I shall seize fate by the throat,” he as soon as wrote to his childhood pal Franz Wegeler. “It shall not wholly overcome me. Oh, how beautiful it is to live – to live a thousand times.” Maybe to jot down joyfully regardless of his struggling was his final technique of defiance.
Look out for some thrilling new recordings of the concertos coming later in Beethoven’s anniversary 12 months of 2020.
Beneficial Recording
Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto recorded by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra carried out by Carlo Maria Giulini.
Three titans – pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra carried out by Carlo Maria Giulini – unite in one of many biggest ever performances of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto.
“Great playing by a great pianist.” – The Gramophone Classical Music Information, 2010
Our beneficial recording of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto might be purchased right here.
