Concerto

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Frederick the Great playing a flute concerto inSanssouci, C. P. E. Bach at the piano, Johann Joachim
Quantz is leaning on the wall to the right; byAdolph Menzel, 1852

A concerto (from the Italian: concerto, plural concerti or, often, the anglicised form concertos)
is a musical composition usually composed in three parts ormovements, in which (usually)
one solo instrument (for instance, a piano, violin, cello or flute) is accompanied by
an orchestra or concert band.
The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the
two Latin words conserere (meaning to tie, to join, to weave) andcertamen (competition, fight):
the idea is that the two parts in a concerto, the soloist and the orchestra or concert band,
alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence in the creation of the music
flow.
The concerto, as understood in this modern way, arose in the Baroque period side by side with
the concerto grosso, which contrasted a small group of instruments with the rest of the
orchestra. The popularity of the concerto grosso form declined after the Baroque period, and
the genre was not revived until the 20th century. The solo concerto, however, has remained a
vital musical force from its inception to this day.
Contents
[hide]

1 Early Baroque concerto

2 Late Baroque concerto

3 Classical concerto
o

3.1 Violin concertos

3.2 Cello concertos

3.3 Keyboard concertos

3.4 Concertos for other instruments

4 Romantic concerto
o

4.1 Violin concertos

4.2 Cello concertos

4.3 Piano concertos

4.4 Small-scale works

5 20th century
o

5.1 Violin concertos

5.2 Cello concertos

5.3 Piano concertos

5.4 Concertos for other instruments

5.5 Concertos for orchestra or concert band

6 Concertos for two or more instruments

7 See also

8 References

9 External links

Early Baroque concerto[edit]

The term "concerto" was initially used to denote works involving voices and instruments in
which the instruments had independent partsas opposed to the Renaissance common
practice in which the instruments that accompanied voices only doubled the voice parts.
[1]
Examples of this earlier form of concerto include Giovanni Gabrieli's "In Ecclesiis" or Heinrich
Schtz's "Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich."

Late Baroque concerto[edit]

See also: Ripieno concerto.
The concerto began to take its modern shape in the late Baroque period. Starting from a form
called Concerto grosso popularized by Arcangelo Corelli, it evolved into the form we
understand today as performance of a soloist with/against an orchestra.
The main composers of concerti of the baroque were Tommaso Albinoni, Antonio
Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Pietro
Locatelli, Giuseppe Tartini, Francesco Geminiani and Johann Joachim Quantz. The concerto
was intended as a composition typical of the Italian style of the time, and all the composers
were studying how to compose in the Italian fashion (all'italiana).
The baroque concerto was mainly for a string instrument (violin, viola, cello, seldom viola
d'amore or harp) or a wind instrument (oboe, trumpet, flute, or horn).
During the baroque period, before the invention of modern piano, the increased volume and
the richer sound of the new instrument allowed the keyboard instrument to better compete with
a full orchestra.

Cello concertos have been written since the Baroque era if not earlier. Among the works from
that period, those by Antonio Vivaldi and Giuseppe Tartini are still part of the
standard repertoire today.

Classical concerto[edit]

Sonata form in the Classical Concerto.[2] See: trill (music), cadenza, and coda (music).
For exposition, development and recapitulation, seesonata form.

The concerti of the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach are perhaps the best links between those
of the Baroque period and those of the Classical era.
It is conventional to state that the first movements of concerti from the Classical period
onwards follow the structure of sonata form. Final movements are often in rondo form, as in
J.S. Bach's E Major Violin Concerto.[2]

Violin concertos[edit]
Mozart wrote five violin concertos, in quick succession. They show a number of influences,
notably Italian and Austrian. Several passages have leanings towards folk music, as
manifested in Austrian serenades.
Haydn wrote four violin concerti.
Beethoven wrote only one violin concerto.

Cello concertos[edit]
Haydn wrote at least two cello concertos which are the most important works in that genre of
the classical era. However, C.P.E. Bachs three cello concertos are also noteworthy.

Keyboard concertos[edit]
C.P.E. Bachs keyboard concertos contain some brilliant soloistic writing. Some of them have
movements that run into one another without a break, and there are frequent cross-movement
thematic references.
Mozart, as a boy, made arrangements for harpsichord and orchestra of three sonata
movements by Johann Christian Bach. By the time he was twenty, Mozart was able to write
concerto ritornelli that gave the orchestra admirable opportunity for asserting its character in an
exposition with some five or six sharply contrasted themes, before the soloist enters to
elaborate on the material. Some of his twenty-seven piano are considered central in the
instrument's repertoire.
Haydn wrote a dozen keyboard concertos, although a couple of them are considered spurious.

Concertos for other instruments[edit]

C.P.E. Bach wrote four flute concertos and two oboe concertos.
Mozart wrote one concerto each for flute, oboe (later rearranged for flute and known as Flute
Concerto No. 2), clarinet, and bassoon, four for horn, a Concerto for Flute, Harp, and
Orchestra, a Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, and Exsultate, jubilate, a de

facto concerto for soprano voice. They all exploit and explore the characteristics of the solo
instrument.
Haydn wrote an important trumpet concerto and a Sinfonia Concertante for violin, cello, oboe
and bassoon as well as two horn concertos.

Romantic concerto[edit]
Violin concertos[edit]
Main article: Violin concerto
In the 19th century the concerto as a vehicle for virtuosic display flourished as never before. It
was the age in which the artist was seen as hero, to be worshipped and adulated with rapture.
Early Romantic traits can be found in the violin concertos of Viotti, but it is Spohrs twelve violin
concertos, written between 1802 and 1827, that truly embrace the Romantic spirit with their
melodic as well as their dramatic qualities.
Beethovens Violin Concerto is unique in its scale and melodic qualities. Recitative elements
are often incorporated, showing the influence of Italian opera on purely instrumental forms.
Mendelssohn opens his violin concerto (1844) with the singing qualities of the violin solo. Even
later passage work is dramatic and recitative-like, rather than merely virtuosic. The wind
instruments state the lyrical second subject over a low pedal G on the violin
certainly[neutrality is disputed] an innovation. The cadenza, placed at the end of the development and
acting as a link to the recapitulation, is fully written out and integrated into the structure.
The great violin virtuoso Niccol Paganini was a legendary figure who, as a composer,
exploited the technical potential of his instrument to its very limits. Each one exploits rhapsodic
ideas but is unique in its own form. The Belgian violinist Henri Vieuxtemps, himself a major
virtuoso, contributed several works to this form.
douard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole (1875) displays virtuoso writing with a Spanish flavor.
Max Bruch wrote three violin concertos, but it is the first, in G minor, that has remained a firm
favorite in the repertoire. The opening movement relates so closely to the two remaining
movements that it functions like an operatic prelude.
Tchaikovskys violin concerto (1878) is a powerful work which succeeds in being lyrical as well
as superbly[neutrality is disputed] virtuosic.
In the same year Brahms wrote his violin concerto for the virtuoso Joseph Joachim. This work
makes new demands on the player, so much so that when it was first written it was referred to
as a "concerto against the violin". The first movement brings the concerto into the realm of
symphonic development. The second movement is traditionally lyrical, and the finale is based
on a lively Hungarian theme.

Cello concertos[edit]
Main article: Cello concerto
Since the Romantic era, the cello has received as much attention as the piano and violin as a
concerto instrument, and many great Romantic and even more 20th-century composers left
examples.
Antonn Dvoks cello concerto ranks among the supreme examples from the Romantic era
while Robert Schumann's focuses on the lyrical qualities of the instrument. The instrument was
also popular with composers of the Franco-Belgian tradition: SaintSans and Vieuxtemps wrote two cello concertos each and Lalo and Jongen one. Elgar's
popular concerto, while written in the early 20th century, belongs to the late romantic period
stylistically.

Beethoven contributed to the repertoire with a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello and
orchestra while later in the century, Brahms wrote a Double Concerto for violin, cello and
orchestra.
Tchaikovskys contribution to the genre is a series of Variations on a Rococo Theme. He also
left very fragmentary sketches of a projected Cello Concerto. Cellist Yuriy Leonovich and
Tchaikovsky researcher Brett Langston published their completion of the piece in 2006.
Carl Reinecke, David Popper and Julius Klengel also wrote cello concertos that were popular
in their time and are still played occasionally nowadays.
Today's 'core' repertoire which is performed the most of any cello concertos are
by Elgar, Dvok, Saint-Sans, Haydn, Shostakovich and Schumann, but there are many more
concertos which are performed nearly as often (see below: cello concertos in the 20th century).

Piano concertos[edit]
Main article: Piano concerto
Beethovens five piano concertos increase the technical demands made on the soloist. The last
two are particularly remarkable, integrating the concerto into a large symphonic structure with
movements that frequently run into one another. His Piano Concerto No. 4 starts, against
tradition, with a statement by the piano, after which the orchestra enters in a foreign key, to
present what would normally have been the opening tutti. The work has an essentially lyrical
character. The slow movement is a dramatic dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra.
His Piano Concerto No. 5 has the basic rhythm of a Viennese militarymarch. There is no lyrical
second subject, but in its place a continuous development of the opening material. He also
wrote a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello, and orchestra.
The piano concertos of Cramer, Field, Dssek, Woelfl, and Hummel provide a link from the
Classical concerto to the Romantic concerto.
Chopin wrote two piano concertos in which the orchestra is very much relegated to an
accompanying role. Schumann, despite being a pianist-composer, wrote a piano concerto in
which virtuosity is never allowed to eclipse the essential lyrical quality of the work. The gentle,
expressive melody heard at the beginning on woodwind and horns (after the pianos heralding
introductory chords) bears the material for most of the argument in the first movement. In fact,
argument in the traditional developmental sense is replaced by a kind of variation technique in
which soloist and orchestra interweave their ideas.
Liszt's mastery of piano technique matched that of Paganini for the violin. His concertos No.
1 and No. 2 left a deep impression on the style of piano concerto writing,
influencing Rubinstein, and especiallyTchaikovsky, whose first piano concerto's rich chordal
opening is justly famous. Griegs concerto likewise begins in a striking manner after which it
continues in a lyrical vein.
Brahms's First Piano Concerto in D minor (pub 1861) was the result of an immense amount of
work on a mass of material originally intended for a symphony. His Second Piano Concerto in
B major (1881) has four movements and is written on a larger scale than any earlier concerto.
Like his violin concerto, it is symphonic in proportions.
Fewer piano concertos were written in the late Romantic Period. But Grieg-inspired Sergei
Rachmaninoff wrote 4 piano concertos between 1891 and 1926. His 2nd and 3rd, being the
most popular of the 4, went on to become among the most famous in piano repertoire.
Other romantic piano concertos, like Kalkbrenner's, Henri Herz's Moscheles' and Thalberg's
concertos were also very popular in the Romantic era, but not today.

Small-scale works[edit]

Besides the usual three-movement works with the title "concerto", many 19th-century
composers wrote shorter pieces for solo instrument and orchestra, often bearing descriptive
titles. From around 1800 such pieces were often called Konzertstck or Phantasie by German
composers.
Liszt wrote the Totentanz for piano and orchestra, a paraphrase of the Dies Irae. Max Bruch
wrote a popular Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, Csar Franck wrote Les
Djinns and Variations symphoniques, and Gabriel Faur wrote a Ballade for piano and
orchestra. Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is widely considered to be
structured similarly to a piano concerto.
Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra have an important place
in the instrument's repertoire.

20th century[edit]
Many of the concertos written in the early 20th century belong more to the late Romantic
school than to any modernistic movement. Masterpieces were written by Edward Elgar (a violin
concerto and a cello concerto), Sergei Rachmaninoff and Nikolai Medtner (four and three piano
concertos, respectively), Jean Sibelius (a violin concerto), Frederick Delius (a violin concerto, a
cello concerto, a piano concerto and adouble concerto for violin and cello), Karol
Szymanowski (two violin concertos and a "Symphonie Concertante" for piano), and Richard
Strauss (two horn concertos, a violin concerto, Don Quixote a tone poem which features the
cello as a soloist and among later works, an oboe concerto).
However, in the first decades of the 20th century, several composers such
as Debussy, Schoenberg, Berg, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Bartk started
experimenting with ideas that were to have far-reaching consequences for the way music is
written and, in some cases, performed. Some of these innovations include a more frequent use
of modality, the exploration of non-western scales, the development ofatonality, the wider
acceptance of dissonances, the invention of the twelve-tone technique of composition and the
use of polyrhythms and complex time signatures.
These changes also affected the concerto as a musical form. Beside more or less radical
effects on musical language, they led to a redefinition of the concept of virtuosity in order to
include new and extended instrumental techniques as well as a focus on aspects of sound that
had been neglected or even ignored before such as pitch, timbre and dynamics. In some
cases, they also brought about a new approach to the role of the soloist and its relation to the
orchestra.

Violin concertos[edit]
Two great innovators of early 20th-century music, Schoenberg and Stravinsky, both wrote
violin concertos. The material in Schoenbergs concerto, like that in Bergs, is linked by
the twelve-tone serial method.Bartk, another major 20th-century composer, wrote two
important concertos for violin. Russian composers Prokofiev and Shostakovich both wrote two
concertos while Khachaturian wrote a concerto and a Concerto-Rhapsody for the
instrument. Hindemiths concertos hark back to the forms of the 19th century, even if the
harmonic language which he used was different.
Three violin concertos from David Diamond show the form in neoclassical style.
More recently, Dutilleux's L'Arbre des Songes has proved an important addition to the
repertoire and a fine example of the composer's atonal yet melodic style.
Other composers of major violin concertos include Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan
Williams, Samuel Barber, Walton, Benjamin Britten, Frank Martin, Carl Nielsen, Paul

Hindemith, Alfred Schnittke, Gyrgy Ligeti, Philip Glass, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei
Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, Bela Bartok and John Adams.

Cello concertos[edit]
In the 20th century, particularly after the Second World War, the cello enjoyed an
unprecedented popularity. As a result, its concertante repertoire caught up with those of the
piano and the violin both in terms of quantity and quality.
An important factor in this phenomenon was the rise of virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
His outstanding technique and passionate playing prompted dozens of composers to write
pieces for him, first in his native Soviet Union and then abroad. His creations include such
masterpieces as Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto, Dmitri Shostakovich's two cello
concertos, Benjamin Britten's Cello-Symphony (which emphasizes, as its title suggests, the
equal importance of soloist and orchestra), Henri Dutilleux' Tout un monde lointain..., Witold
Lutosawski's cello concerto, Dmitri Kabalevsky's two cello concertos, Aram
Khachaturian's Concerto-Rhapsody, Arvo Prt's Pro et Contra, Alfred Schnittke, Andr
Jolivet and Krzysztof Penderecki second cello concertos, Sofia Gubaidulina's Canticles of the
Sun, Luciano Berio's Ritorno degli Snovidenia, Leonard Bernstein's Three Meditations, James
MacMillan's cello concerto and Olivier Messiaen's Concert quatre (a quadruple concerto for
cello, piano, oboe, flute and orchestra).
In addition, several important composers who were not directly influenced by Rostropovich
wrote cello concertos: Gyrgy Ligeti, Alexander Glazunov, Paul Hindemith, Toru
Takemitsu, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Samuel Barber, Joaqun
Rodrigo, Elliot Carter, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, William Walton, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Hans
Werner Henze, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Einojuhani Rautavaara for instance.

Piano concertos[edit]
Igor Stravinsky wrote three works for solo piano and orchestra: Concerto for Piano and Wind
Instruments, Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, and Movements for Piano and
Orchestra. Sergei Prokofiev, another Russian composer, wrote no less than five piano
concertos which he himself performed. Dmitri Shostakovich composed two. Fellow soviet
composer Aram Khachaturian contributed to the repertoire with a piano concerto and a
Concerto-Rhapsody.
Arnold Schoenbergs Piano Concerto is a well-known example of a dodecaphonic piano
concerto.
Bla Bartk also wrote three piano concertos. Like their violin counterparts, they show the
various stages in his musical development. Bartok's also rearranged his chamber
piece, Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, into a Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion,
adding orchestral accompaniment.
Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a concerto for piano (in fact a reworking of a concerto for two
pianos - both versions have been recorded) while Benjamin Britten's concerto for piano (1938)
is a prominent work from his early period.
Gyrgy Ligeti's concerto (1988) has a synthetic quality: it mixes complex rhythms, the
composer's Hungarian roots and his experiments with micropolyphony from the 1960s and
70's.[3] Witold Lutoslawski's piano concerto, completed in the same year, alternates between
playfulness and mystery. It also displays a partial return to melody after the composer's
aleatoric period.[4]
Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin has written six piano concertos. Finnish
composer Einojuhani Rautavaara wrote three piano concertos, the third one dedicated
to Vladimir Ashkenazy, who played and conducted the world premire.

Concertos for other instruments[edit]

The 20th century also witnessed a growth of the concertante repertoire of instruments, some of
which had seldom or never been used in this capacity. As a result, almost all classical
instruments now have a concertante repertoire. Examples include:

Alto
saxophone Concerto: Adams, Creston, Dahl, Denisov, Dubois, Glazunov, Husa, Ibert, Koc
h, Larsson, Maslanka, Muczynski, Salonen, Tomasi, Worley, Yoshimatsu

Bandonen Concerto: Piazzolla

Baritone saxophone Concerto: Gaines, Glaser, Haas, van Beurden

Bass clarinet Concerto: Bouliane

Bass oboe concerto: Bryars

Bassoon concerto: Aho, Butterworth, Davies, Donatoni, EckhardtGramatt, Fujikura, Gubaidulina, Htu, Jolivet, Kaipainen, Knipper, Landowski, Panufnik, R
ihm, Rota, Sverud, J. Williams

Clarinet
concerto: Aho, Arnold, Copland, Davies, Denisov, Dusapin, Fairouz, Finzi, Franaix, Htu,
Hindemith, Kan-no, Nielsen, Penderecki, Rautavaara, Stravinsky, Takemitsu, Tomasi, J.
Williams

Clavinet concerto: Woolf

Contrabassoon Concerto: Aho, Erb

Contrabass flute Concerto: McGowan

Cornet Concerto: Wright

Double bass
concerto: Aho, Gagneux, Henze, Koussevitsky, Davies, Ohzawa, Rautavaara, Tubin

Euphonium Concerto: Clarke, Cosma, Ewazen, Gillingham, Golland, Graham, Horovitz,

Lindberg, Linkola, Sparke, Wilby.

Flute Concerto: Aho, Arnold, Davies, Denisov, Dusapin, Harman, Htu, Ibert, Jolivet, L
andowski, Nielsen, Penderecki, Rautavaara, Rodrigo, Takemitsu, J. Williams

Free bass accordion Concerto: Serry, Sr.

Guitar Concerto: Arnold, Brouwer, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Hovhaness, Ohana, Ponce,
Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos

Harmonica concerto: Arnold, Vaughan Williams, Villa-Lobos

Harp Concerto: Ginastera, Glire, Jongen, Milhaud, Jolivet, Rautavaara, Rodrigo, VillaLobos
Harpsichord Concerto: de Falla, Glass, Grecki, Martin, Poulenc
Horn Concerto: Aho, Arnold, Arutiunian, Atterberg, Bowen, Carter, Davies, Glire, Gipp
s, Hindemith, Hovhaness, Jacob, Knussen, Ligeti, Murail, Penderecki, Strauss, Tomasi, J.
Williams

Kanun Concerto: Alnar

Mandolin Concerto: Thile

Marimba Concerto: Creston, Larsen, Milhaud, Rosauro, Svoboda, Viao

Oboe
concerto: Aho, Arnold, Bouliane, Davies, Denisov, Harman, MacMillan, Maderna, Martin,
Penderecki, Shchedrin, Strauss, Vaughan Williams, Zimmermann

Organ concerto: Arnold, Hanson, Harrison, Htu, Hindemith, Jongen, Kanno, MacMillan, Peeters, Poulenc, Rorem, Sowerby

Percussion Concerto: Aho, Dorman, Glass, Jolivet, MacMillan, Milhaud, Rautavaara, S

usman

Piccolo Concerto: Davies, Liebermann

Shakuhachi Concerto: Takemitsu

Sheng Concerto: Kan-no, Unsuk Chin.

Soprano saxophone Concerto: Higdon, Hovhaness, Mackey, Torke, Yoshimatsu.

Tenor saxophone Concerto: Bennett, Ewazen, Gould, Nicolau, Ward, Wilder.

Timpani concerto: Druschetzky, Glass, Kraft, Rosauro

Trombone Concerto: Aho, Bourgeois, Dusapin, Gagneux, Grndahl, Holmboe, Larsson

, Milhaud, Olsen, Rota, Rouse, Sandstrm, Tomasi

Trumpet Concerto: Aho, Arnold, Arutiunian, Bhme, Jolivet, Perry, Sandstrm, Williams
, Zimmermann

Tuba Concerto: Aho, Arutiunian, Gagneux, Holmboe, Vaughan Williams, J. Williams

Viola concerto: Aho, Arnold, Bartk, Denisov, Gagneux, Gubaidulina, Hindemith, Kanno, Kancheli, Martin, Milhaud, Murail, Penderecki, Schnittke, Takemitsu, Walton

Among the works of the prolific composer Alan Hovhaness may be noted