But these quibbles miss the point: Chopin was unparalleled in his ability to make the piano sing in a way that more closely resembled the heartfelt melodies of bel canto operas than other piano compositions. His piano concertos can seem grudging or perfunctory in their use of the orchestra, setting up an accompanying line rather than a dialogue between equals. But this creates a closer identification between the listener and the pianist that makes the solo voice all the more thrilling. At over four minutes in length, this first-movement opening seems highly formal and almost Beethovenian, building suspense and duly introducing thematic material in the orchestra before the piano plays a note. But once the piano enters, it is clearly dominant, and suddenly the melodies that sounded merely felicitous in the orchestra have the indescribably expressive sweetness of Chopin. What follows is an allegro maestoso movement that does not follow a highly elaborated development of key modulations, but that continually alternates between E minor and E major until it finally modulates upward to G major as the movement ends. Well, time will show. Its complex syncopations and shifts of tempo afford Chopin the opportunity to alter the mood from foot-stamping intensity to tender lyricism. By this time the entire concerto has unfolded without providing the soloist a chance to play a cadenza—a showy, unaccompanied solo passage designed for climactic virtuosity—yet the overall effect is of spectacular athleticism and beauty in which the piano is dominant from beginning to end.
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Order Today Get Single Tickets. Although born and educated in Poland, he lived his adult life in self-imposed exile as a resident of Paris. He was in many ways the absolute archetype of the suffering 19th-century romantic. Unlike the typical romantic, however, Chopin virtually ignored the orchestra and voice as mediums and concentrated all his energy in the direction of solo piano music. With rare exceptions, his output is universally even in quality. He was influenced by only a few—Beethoven, Field, and Hummel—but has himself influenced almost all piano music written since his time.
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Piano Concerto No. Naxos Javascript not enabled. Creative Commons Attribution 3. Creative Commons Attribution 4.
Your belief in the power of music to heal and transform makes our work possible. Composed: Length: c. We customarily view Chopin in terms of the final years of his short life, as Chopin the Frenchman, the hyper-sensitive, physically fragile superstar. Nor was this gifted and charming young man regarded as worthy of one of the traveling grants to France, Italy, and Austria his government routinely awarded to writers and painters. His most ambitious works to date, the two piano concertos were also taking shape at this time. In these youthful works we are already in the presence of the dreamy-eyed Chopin of Romantic lore: the delicate, sensitive poet of our most ardent imaginings, nowhere more so than in the second movement of the E-minor Concerto. But the moment the piano enters with its reiteration of the opening theme, the Chopin we know and adore takes over, the solo restating in liquid phrases the material presented by the orchestra and embellishing it with the roulades and arabesques of Chopin the composer of music for piano alone. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy.
