The Piano Concerto is a

concerto 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 typi ...

for piano and

string orchestra A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first ...

by the British composer Judith Weir. The work was commissioned by Anthony and Mary Henfrey in celebration of their 25th wedding anniversary. It was written for the pianist William Howard, who first performed the work with the BT Scottish Ensemble at the

Spitalfields Festival Spitalfields Music (previously known as Spitalfields Festival, officially registered as Spitalfields Festival Ltd) is a music charity based in the Bethnal Green area of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Through musical events, the charity hop ...

in London on 12 June 1997.

Composition

In the score program notes, Weir described the soft nature of the Piano Concerto, writing, "Ever since the modern piano was born, the composition of piano concertos has been on an inflationary spiral, and it is now a musical form associated with the crashingly loud side of music; which is not the kind of music I generally like to write." She continued:

Structure

The concerto has a duration of roughly 15 minutes in performance and is cast in three movements: *I *II: "The Sweet Primeroses" *III

Reception

The Piano Concerto is one of Weir's most celebrated works. Tom Service of '' The Guardian'' called it a "pocket-sized compression of a big classical form into just 15 minutes, scored for piano and string ensemble," adding, "Weir somehow manages to create music that sounds completely new from the utterly familiar elements of a held chord in the strings and a melody high up in the piano." Reviewing a recording of the concerto, the music critic Anthony Tommasini of '' The New York Times'' similarly remarked, "Ms. Weir's 1997 Piano Concerto, while paying homage to the delicacy of Mozart's smaller-scaled concertos, shows her in her most audacious mode from the start: wispy lyrical lines in the piano are cushioned by pungent chamber orchestra chords, until the piano turns agitated and a rhythmic bout breaks out among all the players." Arnold Whittall of ''

Gramophone A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

'' described it as "another exercise in puncturing pretension, making strong points about how both lyrical and brittle textures can interact with folk-like idioms in ways where nothing seems diluted or bland."

References

{{Authority control Compositions by Judith Weir 1997 compositions Weir