concerto lesson

8/2/2019 Concerto Lesson

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The ConcertoThe Western Classical Tradition.

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Tuesday, 29 March 2011


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The Concerto A concerto is a large-scale

composition for anorchestra plus a soloist or a

group of soloists. Thesoloist(s) alternate playingwith or alongside thelarger ensemble to provide

opposition and contrast. Concertos have three

movements - fast, slow,fast.



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The Baroque Concerto (c.1600-1750) Baroque composers who wrote concertos include Vivaldi (who wrote over

500, around half of them for violin), Bach and Handel.

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi

There were two types of Baroque concerto - the

concerto grosso and the solo concerto.

The concerto grosso:

is written for a group of solo instruments (theconcertino) plus a larger ensemble (the ripieno)

Bachs six Brandenburg Concertos are well-known

examples of the Baroque concerto grosso.

The Baroque solo concerto:: is written for one solo instrument plus orchestra often has brilliant and technically demanding passages for the soloist to play Vivaldis Four Seasons is a well-known example of the Baroque solo violin

concerto



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The Classical Concerto (c.1750-1800)The concerto was a popular form during the Classical period. It had three movements

two fast outer movements and a slow lyrical middle movement.

The Classical concerto introduced the cadenza, a brilliant dramatic solo passage wherethe soloist plays and the orchestra pauses and remains silent.

A cadenza: is usually played towards the end of the first movement is improvised and based on one or more themes from the first movement

shows off the skills of the soloist often ends on a trill

Mozart wrote 21 concertos for piano as well as concertos for violin, French horn,

clarinet, and flute. The most important composers associated with the classical concerto

are Mozart and Haydn.



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The Romantic Concerto (c.The 19th Century)Concertos remained popular during the Romantic period. There were many

written for piano and violin. The Romantic concerto:

uses a large orchestra exploits the dramatic conflict between soloist and orchestra often has the emphasis on virtuosic display often has very difficult solo parts has cadenzas written by the composer rather than improvised

Beethoven wrote five piano concertos and a violin concerto. The violin concerto

flourished and some of the most well-known were written during this period. These

include works by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Brahms. Other composers of romantic

piano concertos include Chopin, Liszt, Schumann and Grieg.



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The 20th Century ConcertoThe concerto has continued to flourish in the 20th and 21st centuries. Concertos continue

to be written for piano (e.g. Rachmaninoff,Shostakovitch, and Ravel) and violin (e.g.

Berg and Philip Glass).Since the 20th century, concertos have been written for a wide variety of instruments.

Composers have experimented with the concerto form and with new sounds. The

Swedish composer Jan Sandstrm wrote Motorbike Odyssey - a concerto for solo

trombone where the soloist arrives on stage on a motorbike and imitates the sound of the

machine.Listen to opening of Veni, Veni Emmanuel a one-movement percussion concerto written

by James MacMillan.



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ListeningListen to the concerto extracts: Write down what the solo instrument is

The era of the concerto. And two possible composers.


concerto lesson

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