Concerto Music

A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typical three-movement structure, a slow movement (e.g., lento or adagio) preceded and followed by fast movements (e.g. presto or allegro), became a standard from the early 18th century.

The concerto originated as a genre of vocal music in the late 16th century: the instrumental variant appeared around a century later, when Italians such as Giuseppe Torelli started to publish their concertos. A few decades later, Venetian composers, such as Antonio Vivaldi, had written hundreds of violin concertos, while also producing solo concertos for other instruments such as a cello or a woodwind instrument, and concerti grossi for a group of soloists. The first keyboard concertos, such as George Frideric Handel's organ concertos and Johann Sebastian Bach's harpsichord concertos were written around the same time.

In the second half of the 18th century, the piano became the most used keyboard instrument, and composers of the Classical Era such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven each wrote several piano concertos, and, to a lesser extent, violin concertos, and concertos for other instruments. In the Romantic Era, many composers, including Niccolò Paganini, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff, continued to write solo concertos, and, more exceptionally, concertos for more than one instrument; 19th century concertos for instruments other than the piano, violin and cello remained comparatively rare however. In the first half of the 20th century, concertos were written by, among others, Maurice Ravel, Edward Elgar, Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev, George Gershwin, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Joaquín Rodrigo and Béla Bartók, the latter also composing a concerto for orchestra, that is without soloist. During the 20th century concertos appeared by major composers for orchestral instruments which had been neglected in the 19th century such as the clarinet, viola and French horn.

In the second half of the 20th century and onwards into the 21st a great many composers have continued to write concertos, including Alfred Schnittke, György Ligeti, Dimitri Shostakovich, Philip Glass and James MacMillan among many others. An interesting feature of this period is the proliferation of concerti for less usual instruments, including orchestral ones such as the double bass (by composers like Eduard Tubin or Peter Maxwell Davies) and cor anglais (like those by MacMillan and Aaron Jay Kernis), but also folk instruments (such as Tubin's concerto for Balalaika or the concertos for Harmonica by Villa-Lobos and Malcolm Arnold), and even Deep Purple's ''Concerto for Group and Orchestra'', a concerto for a rock band.

Concertos from previous ages have remained a conspicuous part of the repertoire for concert performances and recordings. Less common has been the previously common practice of the composition of concertos by a performer to performed personally, though the practice has continued via international competitions for instrumentalists such as the Van Cliburn Piano Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition, both requiring performances of concertos by the competitors.

Genre

The Italian word ''concerto'', meaning accord or gathering, derives from the Latin verb ''concertare'', which indicates a competition or battle.

Baroque Era

Compositions were for the first time indicated as concertos in the title of a music print when the were published in 1587.

Concerto as a genre of vocal music

In the 17th century, sacred works for voices and orchestra were typically called concertos, as reflected by J. S. Bach's usage of the title "concerto" for many of the works that we know as cantatas. The term "concerto" was initially used to denote works that involved voices and instruments in which the instruments had independent parts—as opposed to the Renaissance common practice in which instruments that accompanied voices only doubled the voice parts. Examples of this earlier form of concerto include Giovanni Gabrieli's "In Ecclesiis" or Heinrich Schütz's "Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich".

Instrumental concerto

The concerto began to take its modern shape in the late-Baroque period, beginning with the '' concerto grosso'' form developed by Arcangelo Corelli. Corelli's concertino group was two violins, a cello and basso continuo. In J. S. Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, for example, the concertino is a flute, a violin, and a harpsichord; although the harpsichord is a featured solo instrument, it also sometimes plays with the ''ripieno'', functioning as a continuo keyboard accompaniment.

Later, the concerto approached its modern form, in which the concertino usually reduces to a single solo instrument playing with (or against) an orchestra. The main composers of concertos of the baroque were Tommaso Albinoni, Antonio Vivaldi (e.g. published in ''L'estro armonico'', '' La stravaganza'', Six Violin Concertos, Op. 6, Twelve Concertos, Op. 7, '' Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione'', Six Flute Concertos, Op. 10, Six Concertos, Op. 11 and Six Violin Concertos, Op. 12), Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Pietro Locatelli, Jean-Marie Leclair, 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 (flute, recorder, oboe, bassoon, horn, or trumpet,). Bach also wrote a concerto for two violins and orchestra. During the Baroque period, before the invention of the piano, keyboard concertos were comparatively rare, with the exception of the organ and some harpsichord concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Classical era

The concertos of the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach, such as C. P. E. 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 concertos 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.

Mozart wrote five violin concertos, all in 1775. They show a number of influences, notably Italian and Austrian. Several passages have leanings towards folk music, as manifested in Austrian serenades. Mozart also wrote the Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola, and orchestra. Beethoven wrote only one violin concerto that remained obscure until revealed as a masterpiece in a performance by violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim on 27 May 1844.

C.P.E. Bach's keyboard concertos contain some virtuosic solo 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 child, made arrangements for keyboard and orchestra of four sonatas by now little-known composers. Then he arranged 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. Of his 27 piano concertos, the last 22 are highly appreciated. A dozen cataloged keyboard concertos are attributed to Haydn, of which only three or four are considered genuine.

C. P. E. Bach wrote five flute concertos and two oboe concertos. Mozart wrote five horn concertos, with two 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, and ''Exsultate, jubilate'', a ''de facto'' concerto for soprano voice. They all exploit and explore the characteristics of the solo instrument(s). Haydn wrote an important trumpet concerto and a ''Sinfonia Concertante'' for violin, cello, oboe and bassoon as well as two horn concertos.

Romantic era

In the 19th century, the concerto as a vehicle for virtuosic display flourished, and concertos became increasingly complex and ambitious works. Whilst performances of typical concertos in the baroque era lasted about ten minutes, those by Beethoven could last half an hour or longer. The term concertino (composition), or the German ''Konzertstuck'' ("Concert Piece") began to be used to designate smaller pieces not considered large enough to be considered a full concerto, though the distinction has never been formalised and many Concertinos are still longer than the original Baroque concertos.

During the Romantic era the cello became increasingly used as a concerto instrument; though the violin and piano remained the most frequently used. Beethoven contributed to the repertoire of concertos for more than one soloist 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.

20th and 21st century

Many of the concertos written in the early 20th century belong more to the late Romantic school, hence 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 a double 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 that 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 Bartók 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 of atonality and neotonality, 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 that included new and extended instrumental techniques and a focus on previously neglected aspects of sound such as pitch, timbre and dynamics. In some cases, they also brought about a new approach to the role of soloists and their relation to the orchestra.

Two great innovators of early 20th-century music, Schoenberg and Stravinsky, both wrote violin concertos. The material in Schoenberg's concerto, like that in Berg's, is linked by the twelve-tone serial method. 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.

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, and even a concerto for wordless coloratura soprano by Reinhold Glière. As a result, almost all classical instruments now have a concertante repertoire. Among the works of the prolific composer Alan Hovhaness may be noted ''Prayer of St. Gregory'' for trumpet and strings, though it is not a concerto in the usual sense of the term. In the later 20th century the concerto tradition was continued by composers such as Maxwell Davies, whose series of Strathclyde Concertos exploit some of the instruments less familiar as soloists.

Concertos with concert band:
*Bryant – 2007–2010
* Foss – 2002
*Husa – 1982
*Jacob – 1974
* Jager – 1982

By type

Vocal concerto

20th century:
*Coloratura soprano Concerto: Reinhold Glière

Without orchestra

Single solo instrument

Baroque era:
* Bach:
** '' Italian Concerto''
** Weimar concerto transcriptions

Multiple instruments

Baroque era:
* Bach's concerto for two harpsichords, BWV 1061.1
* Telemann's concertos for four violins

20th century:
* Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments
* Stravinsky's Concerto for Two Pianos

For one instrumental soloist and orchestra

For bowed string instrument and orchestra

=Violin concerto

=

Baroque era:
* Vivaldi:
** Nos. 3, 6, 9 and 12 of ''L'estro armonico''
** '' La stravaganza''
** Six Violin Concertos, Op. 6
** Ten of the Twelve Concertos, Op. 7
** '' Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione'', which includes '' The Four Seasons''
** Five of the Six Concertos, Op. 11
** Six Violin Concertos, Op. 12
** ''Grosso mogul''
* Bach:
** Violin Concerto in A minor
** Violin Concerto in E major

Classical era:
* Mozart:
** No. 1 in B flat major, K. 207
** No. 2 in D major, K. 211
** No. 3 in G major, K. 216 (''Straßburg'')
** No. 4 in D major, K. 218
** No. 5 in A major, K. 219 (''Turkish'')

Early Romantic traits can be found in the violin concertos of Viotti, but it is Spohr's twelve violin concertos, written between 1802 and 1827, that truly embrace the Romantic spirit with their melodic as well as their dramatic qualities.

20th century:
* Arnold Schoenberg
* Igor Stravinsky
* Alban Berg
* Bartók wrote two concertos for violin.
* Russian composers Prokofiev and Shostakovich each wrote two concertos while Khachaturian wrote a concerto and a Concerto-Rhapsody for the instrument.
* Hindemith's concertos hark back to the forms of the 19th century, even if the harmonic language he used was different.
* Three violin concertos from David Diamond show the form in neoclassical style.
* In 1950 Carlos Chávez completed a substantial Violin Concerto with an enormous central cadenza for the unaccompanied violin.
* 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 John Adams, Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, Peter Maxwell Davies, Miguel del Aguila, Philip Glass, Cristóbal Halffter, György Ligeti, Frank Martin, Bohuslav Martinů, Carl Nielsen, Walter Piston, Alfred Schnittke, Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, John Williams and Roger Sessions.

21st century:
* Elfman's violin concerto

=Viola concerto

=

Baroque era:
* Viola Concerto in G major (Telemann)

Classical era:
* Viola Concerto in D major, Op. 1 (Carl Stamitz)

* Viola Concerto in E♭ major, ICZ 17 (Carl Friedrich Zelter)

20th century:
* Viola concerto: Aho, Arnold, Bartók, del Aguila, Denisov, Gagneux, Gubaidulina, Hindemith, Kancheli, Martinů, Milhaud, Murail, Penderecki, Schnittke, Takemitsu, Walton

=Cello concerto

=

The 'core' repertoire—performed the most of any cello concertos—are by Elgar, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns, Haydn, Shostakovich and Schumann, but many more concertos are performed nearly as often.

Baroque era:
* Vivaldi's cello concertos RV 398–403, 405–414 and 416–424

Classical era:
* Haydn wrote two cello concertos (for cello, oboes, horns, and strings), which are the most important works in that genre of the classical era.
* Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach wrote three cello concertos and Luigi Boccherini wrote twelve cello concertos.

Romantic era:
* Antonín Dvořák's 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: Saint-Saëns and Vieuxtemps wrote two cello concertos each and Lalo and Jongen one.
* Tchaikovsky's 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.
* Elgar's popular concerto, while written in the early 20th century, belongs to the late romantic period stylistically.

20th century:
* An important factor for the 20th-century cello concerto 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. Among such compositions may be listed 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...'', Cristóbal Halffter's two cello concertos, Witold Lutosławski's cello concerto, Dmitry Kabalevsky's two cello concertos, Aram Khachaturian's ''Concerto-Rhapsody'', Arvo Pärt's ''Pro et Contra'', Alfred Schnittke, André 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 à 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: Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter, Carlos Chávez, Miguel del Aguila, Alexander Glazunov, Hans Werner Henze, Paul Hindemith, Arthur Honegger, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, György Ligeti, Bohuslav Martinů, Darius Milhaud, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Joaquín Rodrigo, Toru Takemitsu, William Walton, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Bernd Alois Zimmermann for instance.

=Double bass concerto

=

20th century:
* Double bass concerto: Aho, Gagneux, Henze, Koussevitsky, Davies, Ohzawa, Rautavaara, Skalkottas, Tubin

=Other bowed string instruments

=

20th century:
*Viola d'amore concerto: Hindemith

For plucked string instrument and orchestra

=Harp concerto

=

Baroque era:
* Handel's Harp Concerto, HWV 294 (a.k.a. )

Classical era:
* Jean-Baptiste Krumpholz: Harp Concertos and
* Francesco Petrini: Harp Concertos , and
* Ernst Eichner's
* Jan Ladislav Dussek: Harp Concertos , and
* François-Adrien Boieldieu's Hurwitz, David
"Harp Concertos SACD"
at Classics Today website.

Romantic era:
* Nicolas-Charles Bochsa: Harp Concertos and
* Elias Parish Alvars: Harp Concertos and
* Carl Reinecke's
* John Thomas's
* Henriette Renié's

20th century:
* Reinhold Glière's Harp ConcertoHarp Concertos: Ginastera / Jolivet / Glière
at Alice Giles's Harp Concerto
* Joaquín Rodrigo's ''Concierto serenata

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