The Triple Concerto No. 2, Op. 139, is a concerto for three instruments –

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

, harp and

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

– and orchestra by Dmitri Smirnov, composed in 2003. It was premiered in the centenary concert of the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orc ...

on 26 May 2004, with principal players from the orchestra as soloists.

History

Smirnov composed several concertos for single instruments, and two triple concertos for three instruments, the Triple Concerto No. 1 for

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

and

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

in 1977 when he lived in Russia, and the Triple Concerto No. 2 for

, harp, double bass and orchestra in 2003, when he was a resident of England. It was published by Boosey & Hawkes. The world premiere of the Triple Concerto No. 2 was performed at the Barbican Centre in London on 26 May 2004. In the concert marking the centenary of the London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus (LSO), it was called LSO Centenary Concertante, and was combined with Mahler's Second Symphony "Resurrection", with Andrew Davis conducting the London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus. The soloists were violinist

Gordan Nikolitch Gordan Nikolitch, also spelled Gordan Nikolić, ( sr, Гордан Николић; born 1968) is a Franco-Serbian violinist. He was the first concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra for nearly 20 years, having stepped down in October 2017 to ...

, harpist Bryn Lewis, and double bassist Rinat Ibragimov, all principal players of the LSO.

Scoring

The Triple Concerto is structured in three sections or

movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

: # Con moto # Lento # Presto Smirnov scored the work for the three solo instruments, and an orchestra consisting of piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet,

(3–4 players of

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...

suspended cymbal Classical suspended cymbal A suspended cymbal is any single cymbal played with a stick or beater rather than struck against another cymbal. Common abbreviations used are "sus. cym.," or "sus. cymb." (with or without the period). Most drum kit ...

maraca A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were ...

s, woodblock,

bongos Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The ...

tom-tom A tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snares, named from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala language. It was added to the drum kit in the early part of the 20th century. Most toms range in size between in diameter, though floor toms can go as l ...

gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

tam-tam A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

side drum The snare (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used in ...

, bass drum, glockenspiel,

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...

bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...

s), and strings. The concerto takes about 25 minutes to perform. The first movement has been described by a reviewer as "music meant to wound", the second movement as "unsettling and angst-ridden", and the third movement was compared to a

Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

film track. The three solo instruments complement each other, comparable to the voice types soprano for the violin, mezzo-soprano for the harp, and basso profundo for the double bass. They are at times combined sounding like one voice, and at times "play in radical styles with distinctly foreign sounding voices". Episodes follow each other in collage fashion, in intentionally heterogeneous styles and sounds.

References

2003 compositions Concertos for multiple instruments Compositions by Dmitri Smirnov