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I'm thinking about applying for a (national) competition in two years where, if you get to the finals, you get to play with orchestra. A friend of mine is in the finals this year and the next competition will take place in two years. However, there is a 20 minute time limit which makes it a bit difficult to choose what piece to compete with.

My friend is playing the Shostakovich first piano concerto, which is about 20 minutes I believe, but the other two finalists have chosen to play movements from longer concertos. However, if I would get to the finals, I would prefer to play a complete shorter concerto than just a movement. However, the list of concertos under 20 minutes is somewhat small... We have:

Ravel - Concerto for the left hand, also the G major concerto
Franck - Symphonic variations
Rachmaninoff - Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini
Prokofiev - Piano concerto no 1 (right? isn't it really short?)

Can you come up with more examples? I mean, most standard concertos are at least 25-30 minutes...

What about the Mendelssohn or Liszt concerti. I don't know if they're exactly under 20 min, but they're on the shorter side. Also Saint-Sean #2 might qualify.

Is there a problem with classical period concertos? Are they too easy to get you into the finals? Many of them would fit the 20 minute time constraint.

Rimsky-Korsakov. A delectable concerto, short and very Lisztian (in thematic process). I utterly fail to understand why it is so seldom played.

Françaix' Concertino is about 12 minutes. The Tchaikowsky Third is one short movement, and his Concert Fantasy is two short movements.

There are lots of concert pieces for piano and orchestra:
Bartok's Rhapsody
Beethoven's Choral Fantasie
Three by Chopin
Faure's Ballade
Gershwin's two Rhapsodies and his Variations
Five by Mendelssohn
Two Rondos by Mozart
Two by Schumann
Strauss' Burlesque
Stravinsky's Movements
Weber's Konzertstück

I am sure there are lots of others.

isn't the Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody 22 minutes on average?

it's a dream of mine to play that with an orchestra... still working on it privatly though.

The Liszt Concertos 1 and 2 are under 20 minutes, I love them, can't play them (haven't tried yet) but love them.

Nice suggestion right there.

I think both the Rachmaniniov Rhapsody and the Ravel G major concerto are longer than 20 minutes (not much though).

Two more pieces I can think of:
Schönberg - Piano Concerto (might be a bit longer than 20 minutes though)
Takemitsu - riverrun (about 15 minutes, if you like neo-impressionism)

fnork :

You might also want to check with the competition organizers themselves to find out if the orchestra parts are available to them at a price that's within their budget. If you plan on playing something rather esoteric the full score might not be available or it might be very expensive to rent for the occasion.

They might even have a limited list of which Concertos can be played because of availability or expense of renting the score. It can't hurt to check that out.

Regards,

Nice -and difficult. A wolf in sheep's clothing.

If Stravinsky's "Movements" ever wins a concerto competition, I will eat a piano bench. Without ketchup.

(Great piece, though!)

Boil it for a few hours first, the naugahyde needs to soften a bit. :p

Of course, if you want to do every piano concerto in under 20 minutes, there is the Concerto Popolare, the piano concerto to end all piano concertos, by Franz Reizenstein. I wish I knew how to get hold of the music! I think it was inspired by the story of Beecham conducting with Cortot playing, where there was a tremendous memory slip, and they had to stop, consult the score, and start over again. Afterwards, someone came up to Beecham and said that Cortot had gotten confused, that he was supposed to play the Grieg, but thought it was the Schumann, instead. Beecham responded, "Well, he started to play the Schumann, so I conducted the Schumann. Then he went to the Grieg, so I conducted the Grieg. Then he went through all manner of concertos, but when he started playing one that I did not know, we had to stop!"

LOL!!!

Totentanz by Liszt XD

As I would say. Very pianistic, and according to Hinson, extremely effective, while not overly difficult. Accepted by the PianoTexas International Young Artists Concerto competition as a full-blown concerto.

a few more to add to the list

the Bach keyboard concertos are all less than 21'
the Poulenc comes in around 20'
Schumann G+Konzerstuck

How about Andante Spiniato/Grande Polonaise Brilliante, Shostakovich 2nd, or some Mozart concertos?

If you can get hold of the Hinson book Music for Piano and Orchestra, you will find the timings of many pieces. As has been mentioned previously, you should find out whether the parts are available for the pieces before embarking on learning something that is too far out of the ordinary repertoire.

Another concert piece that I really like is Saint-Saens Africa. There is also the Wedding Cake which is fun, but perhaps has a bit too much icing for a competition.

Thanks for all of the suggestions, very helpful. On the homepage, it just says that it could be any concerto with "standard orchestration", in other words, not something like Ives fourth symphony which could be seen as a piano concerto but which requires two conductors, a second piano which has to be tuned down to 440 Hz, a small orchestra placed in the back of the hall and a choir placed somewhere in the audience . Not planning to learn that one though!

THe competition is open for all instrumentalists and singers. I just read on their homepage that it's possible to apply with a long concerto, but the jury will probably decide, if it's too long, that the soloist just plays one or two movements of it. So, any piece under say 25 minutes is probably okay. Anyway, I'm really thinking about Ravels Left Hand-concerto, such a great piece and one of my former teachers, who has performed it a lot, could help me a lot with it. In two years, it's certainly possible...