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I can't recall if I've started a thread of this sort before, but from the last 2-3 decades or so, what are your favorite piano concerti? Not until you start digging do you realize that there are quite a few real gems that have been written in recent years - I hope and believe that some of them will stay in the repertoire. Here are a few that I like.
Kevin Volans 2nd piano concerto, "Atlantic crossing"
Written for Marc-Andre Hamelin, with a monstrously difficult solo piano part.
Kevin Volans - Piano concerto nr 3
Frederic Rzewski - Piano concerto (2013)
Quite enigmatic piece for me, but with lots of suspense and interesting moments.
Magnus Lindberg - Piano concerto nr 2 (2012)
Lindberg's two piano concerti are quite different from one another - while there's an abundance of notes in both of them, the first is significantly more economical in its orchestration, while the second is written for a full-bodied symphony orchestra. Premiered by NY Phil and Yefim Bronfman, here's the Finnish premiere from earlier this month - the link should be valid for a month or so:
Great thread Martin. I will be listening attentively. This might be a little too close to pop for some, but I don't care, I happen to really like the David Maslanka concerto no. 2 for piano with wind band and percussion. Audio is on the composer website here http://davidmaslanka.com/works/concerto-for-piano-winds-and-percussion-no-2/
Heather Reichgott, piano
Working on: Mel (Mélanie) Bonis - Sevillana, La cathédrale blessée William Grant Still - Three Visions
Recent piano concertos I've been enjoying on my iPod include James MacMillan's Piano Concerto No.2 (2003), Erkki-Sven Tüür's Piano Concerto (2008), and Arlene Sierra's Piano Concerto (Art of War).
One is clearly a battle between piano and orchestra, another has hints of Celtic folksong, and the third has jazz-like riffs. I'll leave listeners to sort out which concerto has which........
This type of music (well not really music, but I am supposed to call these like that, anyway) just makes me sick.
And I really adore to people who can stand this type of - well I don't know what to call it, it is definitely not music, but it is more like an output of a sick mind - "thing" more than a few minutes. I can't imagine being any part of the performance, and I adore to people who perform these things, they really have strong nerves.
This type of music (well not really music, but I am supposed to call these like that, anyway) just makes me sick.
And I really adore to people who can stand this type of - well I don't know what to call it, it is definitely not music, but it is more like an output of a sick mind - "thing" more than a few minutes. I can't imagine being any part of the performance, and I adore to people who perform these things, they really have strong nerves.
Nobody will make you listen to something you don't want to hear. That said, can you really say anything accurate about all recently-composed music, other than the fact that it's recently composed? There are so many diverse styles that people write in these days that it's much harder to describe 21st century music in general terms, or even parse out well-established schools of compositional thought, than it was 75 years ago when you had the neoclassicists, the serialists, the primitivists/ethnomusicologists, nationalists, etc. (with some obvious overlap). Composers today can, and do, write whatever they want. If you've honestly given new music a fair shot as opposed to just having written all of it off wholesale after hearing a few dissonant pieces in isolated concerts, then I challenge you to contribute something meaningful to the furtherance of the art of composition, by writing a new piece of great music.
This type of music (well not really music, but I am supposed to call these like that, anyway) just makes me sick.
And I really adore to people who can stand this type of - well I don't know what to call it, it is definitely not music, but it is more like an output of a sick mind - "thing" more than a few minutes. I can't imagine being any part of the performance, and I adore to people who perform these things, they really have strong nerves.
Are you referring to a specific work in this thread or in a more general sense?
I am a bit perplexed by your reaction here, especially after your post in the "Five Piano Pieces..." where you also feel that pastiche is not worth it. :-/
In any case what I heard (the first 3 links) are quite wonderful (yes I'm not publishing his music, so I can say that! ) and it is music for me...
Yes, my response is limited to the links in this thread.
What irritates me is the overly dark, psychopathic, ill minded, negative sounds (sorry I still can't call these music), they are more like some rituals from a voodoo ceremony. I feel sorry about the inner feelings of these composers. Don't they have anything nice to say. why is this pessimistic, dark mood? I feel like I am listening to a horror movie track.
I think that what you're feeling when listening to this music is quite "influenced" by social responses to music. "Rituals from a voodoo ceremony", "nothing nice to say", "pessimistic, dark mood" seem to be less objective than you'd like them to be I think...
I don't feel the same way for such music, especially with such strong sentiments. :-/
I think that what you're feeling when listening to this music is quite "influenced" by social responses to music. "Rituals from a voodoo ceremony", "nothing nice to say", "pessimistic, dark mood" seem to be less objective than you'd like them to be I think...
I don't feel the same way for such music, especially with such strong sentiments. :-/
I would be interested to learn what you feel about these concertos, other than tension, horror, nightmares, etc....and similar.
The thing that I don't get is why these composers compose such music. Do they want to repel people? Why is the strong threatening tone in their compositions? Why are they scratching the walls and windows by their nails? Why are they breaking everything, feeding chaos, hatred, anger, anarchy?
Yes, my response is limited to the links in this thread.
What irritates me is the overly dark, psychopathic, ill minded, negative sounds (sorry I still can't call these music), they are more like some rituals from a voodoo ceremony. I feel sorry about the inner feelings of these composers. Don't they have anything nice to say. why is this pessimistic, dark mood? I feel like I am listening to a horror movie track.
Even the Maslanka that Heather linked to, or did you not listen to that one?
Yes, my response is limited to the links in this thread.
What irritates me is the overly dark, psychopathic, ill minded, negative sounds (sorry I still can't call these music), they are more like some rituals from a voodoo ceremony. I feel sorry about the inner feelings of these composers. Don't they have anything nice to say. why is this pessimistic, dark mood? I feel like I am listening to a horror movie track.
Even the Maslanka that Heather linked to, or did you not listen to that one?
No, not that one. I am talking about the first 3 links in the first post. I am fine with Maslanka and Lindberg (though Linberg is on the edge towards the end).
I love the Vine 1st Piano Concerto, though that was written way back in 1997, I believe. Haven't had the opportunity to hear the 2nd. I don't think it has been recorded.
Anyone who thinks that a piano concerto by a living composer is depressing, dull, brutal or just plain aggressive should have a listen to Kimmo Hakola's 55-minute, nine-movement work: there's everything in there from klezmer and high jinks to introspective beauty:
Adding a few more concerti for now, and will try to contribute to the discussion when time allows!
Hans Abrahamsen - Piano concerto. A quite timeless and captivating piece to my mind - with all 'frozen' moments and silences inbetween the more hectic passages, it certainly feels longer than 15 minutes!
Maurice Ohana - Piano concerto (this might be from the 80's or earlier, can't remember when it was written, but adding it anyway).
Zygmunt Krauze has written two very peculiar piano concertos. Very strangely captivating music to my mind, but of course, not everyone will agree
I'm surprised to be the first to mention the delicate, bewitching Witold Lutosławski Piano Concerto. Krystian Zimerman made a spectacular recording with the composer leading the orchestra.
Anyone who thinks that a piano concerto by a living composer is depressing, dull, brutal or just plain aggressive should have a listen to Kimmo Hakola's 55-minute, nine-movement work: there's everything in there from klezmer and high jinks to introspective beauty:
I have listened to this quite a few times, I still don't quite get it, but every time I enjoy it more
The fact is that while romantic concertos caress one part of my brain, there's also another part in there that wants to listen to modern and more experimental music. It gives you a totally different kind of high.
I'm really glad fnork brought this topic up because I've had some thoughts about this for the past several years.
I've been fascinated by piano concertos since I was a young preteen piano student. I discovered the piano concerto when my mother (who's still with us, God bless her, at 94--the last of 14 brothers and sisters, good Italian family) bought me Rubinstein's "The Heart of the Piano Concerto" when I was 11 which included Chopin's Larghetto. I immediately rushed down to our local library in Lincoln Heights on Workman St. to borrow the 2 piano score from the main library downtown.
Flash forward to 2010. I had given up the piano in 1976 or so to go into the business world because of a finger injury at 19/20. Gave it up again in 2006 after the injury resurfaced when I was trying to make a comeback. I'd listened to several contemporary piano concertos during 2010-2014 on YouTube. What I noticed was that they had all been given flashy premieres by well-known pianists who had commissioned them and then the pianists had totally forgotten them.
Question re the Volans concerto: does Barry Douglas regularly perform this concerto like he does the Rachmaninoff 2nd? If not, why? Does the Rzewski get regularly performed? If not, why? In 2010 I watched Ronald Brautigam give the world premiere of Jacob ter Veldhuis' (better known as Jacob TV) Piano Concerto No 2. There was a video online of the premiere that has since disappeared. To my knowledge Brautigam has never played it since. Again I ask, why?
Anybody noticing a pattern here: famous pianist commissions a concerto; the concerto is ultra avant-garde; it's given a splashy premiere; but afterwards the concerto is never heard from again and the pianist who commissioned it and paid a lot money for it, presumably, drops it from his repertoire.
What gives? These concertos are doomed to obscurity from the moment they are created. The average concert goer would never sit through one of these concertos more than once. Notice that in both cases above there is a long pause before the applause tepidly kicks in, as if the public is asking themselves, "Is that the end? Am I supposed to clap now?"
This scenario is repeated hundreds of times every decade as piano concertos are premiered and then forgotten. We know, based on prior results, exactly what their fates are. I pose a sincere question that I have been asking myself for many years: why does this happen?
I know politics plays a huge part in this. The classical music apparatchik which runs the industry has a huge say in what gets premiered by the big orchestras and what doesn't. Many individuals have commented to me that they do NOT want to see music return to the 19th century. They want to look forward, not backward. I can understand their sentiments, but we have two very real facts that create a huge predicament for the classical music world:
1. most people, other than a few die-hard philes, just don't care for this music, which is why these concertos are rarely, if ever, heard from again. So me, being the practical guy I am, ask, "Why write them then; to what purpose if they are not going to hang around past their premiere?" History repeats itself over and over and over again and yet nobody seems to learn.
2. But modern composers have reached the limits of what Schoenberg and Webern started 70 years ago. Where do we go from here? I don't think there is an idiom that can be created that could be so new and modern and yet achieve the popularity of a Rachmaninoff 2nd or a Tchaikovsky 1st, which is why when 95% of people go to concerts nowadays it is to hear music dating from Bach to maybe Prokofiev, but not much beyond that.
Frankly, I don't think classical music has a future far as original works go. The pattern I outlined above will be repeated over and over; thousands of piano concertos will be written and then forgotten, and for what? Certainly not for posterity. These two concertos will be lucky if they make it as a footnote in the Groves Encyclopedia.
I do have a personal interest in this topic. Some know I wrote two piano concertos in the neo_Romantic style. The first is a throwaway, being my first attempt at orchestration. But I feel my 2nd has something to offer:
Yet I cannot get it heard by any professional pianists/conductors to even evaluate it. Dozens of listeners at Youtube have praised it to the skies (very kind of them) but I think that goes more to a desperate thirst for something--ANYTHING that smells of Rachmaninoff/Tchaikovsky than to the quality of my music itself. If anyone clicks the link above be warned; the audio is not good; the screen capture program damaged it. A much better audio is here:
See the paradox: I am not alone; there ARE some neo-Romantic composers out there but they cannot get out the front door; on the other hand, avant-garde/modernism rarely, if ever, gets more than one performance.
The only modern concerto I can think of that has achieved a degree of popularity is Liebermann's 2nd Piano Concerto
This is a serious state of affairs for classical music and I don't know how it will end but I am thinking it cannot end well.
PS I commented on George Haas' YouTube page on the Piano Concerto pic his striking resemblance to Mads Mikkelsen and he deleted my post. I must have insulted him.
Love me some Ligeti. This concerto, by the way, continues to get performances up to the present, and by a number of different pianists, not just the Aimards of the world, as the link proves. It even was an option for the concerto performance by competitors at the last Busoni Competition.
John Adams' "Century Rolls" is another one I haven't minded hearing more than once, and it is played by more than just the pianist who commissioned it.
There is a fascinating concerto "Mind" from 2000 by Jukka Tiensuu - I think I remember seeing it on YouTube, but it has disappeared.
Just a few brief comments to the discussion so far with regards to new music and how new piano concerti do not get played as much as Rach 2. Without wanting to generalize too much, I want to point out that a lot of people who are involved with new music tend to keep up a very large body of repertoire and may be expected to switch from one program to another with little time, or learn brand new works close to their premiere. This is not merely a 'survival issue', but it also reflects the interests of people involved with new music, jumping into unknown repertoire with unknown challenges with great interest and fascination. Why is this important? Because few people heavily involved with new music care so much for the notion of 'standard repertoire' and mindlessly repeating the same old war horses year after year. I know plenty of absolutely first-rate musicians who focus on contemporary but are equally capable of giving insightful and thoughtful performances of Bach, Beethoven or Chopin. But few of them are interested in repeating themselves with the same surprise-free program of 'standard repertoire' night after night. Indeed, there are no piano concertos written after Bartok's 3rd that can be said to be performed with any regularity similar to concertos by Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky. But is that a way to measure the success of a musical work? And shouldn't we really turn the question around for a change - why are we hearing the same old Tchai 1 year after year performed in more-or-less the same standard way?
