This is a new rendition of my Piano Concerto in C using sounds from EastWest Orchestral Gold set. It's not perfect but it's not too bad.
The Piano Concerto in C was written in 2007 as a gift for a friend. The intent in it was to produce something with tight structure, complex motivic interrelations and other semi-learned devices, but dressing the outer surface in a style which is immediately accessible. I am inspired by the approach of someone like Haydn pursuing the ideal of ‘art concealing art’, with the sub-surface complexity and inner logic and coherence of the music there for whoever looks for it, without that being necessary to enjoy the music. The music makes use of a Romanian folk-scale and is in a style not a million miles away from Ravel, Martinů, Bartók, Sibelius and several film-music composers.
The first movement begins with a main theme, using a Romanian folk mode (C-Eb-E-F#-G-A-Bb-C). The melodic shape of the main theme is used in all three movements for their main material, and the movement C-G-C which begins it is mirrored in the keys for the three movements. The theme is immediately repeated up a major third: keys areas separated by a third are the source of the main harmonic movement in the work. After a bit of playing with the theme and its re-statement the piano enters and leads to a short cadenza. This links to the slower-paced second subject area: but the second subject material is just a variation of the accompaniment figure for the main theme and soon the motifs from the main theme are being used again. The tempo picks up, and a development section ensues. At the centre of this development section, and at the approximate centre of the movement as a whole, is the main cadenza for piano (appropriately enough starting with E flats, a third away from the main key of C). The development picks up again and leads into a recap of the main theme again. There is no second subject again (there wasn’t really a second subject anyway), and a coda gets underway, but a majestic statement of the main theme in brass, interrupted by a loud discord. The strings wonder what to do next. The orchestra storms to a bright conclusion regardless.
The second movement is very slow, deriving from the baroque Sarabande. The opening horn calls (based on the first movement’s main theme) are a fifth away from the G minor area of the surroundings, and sound B naturals which are out of place in G minor. The cor anglais delivers an elegaic melody which is the main material for this movement, punctuated by beats from the basses and drum. The piano states the elegaic melody and then the lower strings conduct a tragic-spirited exploration. The horn calls return, and the piano takes up the main theme a major third away. This attempt gives way to a polyphonic fantasy for woodwind. Eventually the bottled-up tension breaks: a dissonant canonic statement of the theme bursts out, with those horn calls still ringing out clashing against the underlying harmonies, until a final crushing climax. The music collapses and returns to the stillness of the opening. The music fades away on a strange, foreign chord in brass and a final gong stroke.
The last movement is straightforward. It is a moto perpetuo movement with a tarantella rhythm. The main theme is a variant of the first movement theme, and the Romanian mode informs the melodic and harmonic shapes. A kind of second subject tune in longer notes is heard at one point. The middle section of the movement drops into an altered rhythm and uses the “second subject” as its main (slightly banal) tune. It doesn’t last very long before the third section begins again, the same as the first section, until the brass pick up the “second subject” tune and work it to a climax. It runs its course and a brisk coda flings the concerto headlong towards its affirmative conclusion.
Please contact me if you are interested in performing this.
3 окт 2024
