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 said.Ive therefore picked 15, but some ace favourites are still missing and I am horrified to find that the list is all-male.My one rule is to include only one concerto by each composer, but this does, naturally, give you the chance to explore the competition from their other works too.
And I have broken the rule in any case Scroll down to explore our selection of the greatest piano concertos. ![]() Turangalla combines eclectic influences including Indian spirituality, Indonesian gamelan and a synaesthetic fusion of colour with sound; and the composer tops the lot with an ondes martenot, the electronic swoops of which made it a favourite in the scores of horror movies. Yvonnes sister Jeanne Loriod was this instruments chief exponent. Love it or loathe it, Turangalla remains a one-off experience. That extends to the orchestration, which includes triple woodwind and a large percussion section. ![]() But that doesnt mean they cant 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 of them, all breathtakingly beautiful; among them, the D minor concerto edges ahead for its brilliant, toccata-like writing, its ebullient rhythms and its poised, meditative slow movement. His Piano Concerto No.2, one of the greatest piano concertos, was written (like Griegs) 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. This leads into a stormy opening movement, for which Saint-Sans filched a theme by his star pupil, the young Gabriel Faur, who had set aside the choral work for which he had written it and did not seem to mind when his teacher turned it into a smash hit. Next comes a debonair scherzo and an irrepressible tarantella finale. 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 include, for instance, the use of three time signatures at once. As dazzlingly original as the composers astonishing Etudes for solo piano, with which it shares some vital qualities, it deserves to be part of every adventurous soloists repertoire. The concertos wide appeal is evident from the first note to the last: the dramatic opening drum-roll and solo plunge across the keyboard, the lavish melodies with their roots in Norwegian folk music Moreover, this concerto presented a structure that was copied by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, to name but three, the one that came almost to define our notion of the war-horse piano concerto. An attention-grabbing opening; a big tune in the finale that rises to ultimate prominence; you found them here in Bergen first. The composer was seriously ill with leukaemia and it killed him before he could complete the work; his friend Tibor Serly was tasked with orchestrating the final 17 bars. ![]() It betrays no hint of the composers troubled exit from wartime Hungary and the struggles of his life in exile in the US. Writing in 1929-31, Ravel was still relishing his recent trip to New York, during which his friend George Gershwin had taken him to the jazz clubs on Harlem; the impact is palpable.
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