Concerto
Encyclopedia
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements
, in which (usually) one solo instrument (for instance, a piano, violin, cello or flute) is accompanied by an orchestra
.
The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words conserere (meaning to tie, to join, to weave) and certamen (competition, fight): the idea is that the two parts in a concerto, the soloist and the orchestra, alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence in the creation of the music flow.
The concerto, as understood in this modern way, arose in the Baroque
period side by side with the concerto grosso
, which contrasted a small group of instruments with the rest of the orchestra. The popularity of the concerto grosso form declined after the Baroque period, and the genre was not revived until the 20th century. The solo concerto, however, has remained a vital musical force from its inception to this day.
period.
Starting from a form called Concerto grosso
introduced by Arcangelo Corelli
, it evolved into the form we understand today as performance of a soloist with/against an orchestra.
The main composers of concerti of the baroque were: Tommaso Albinoni, Antonio Vivaldi
, Georg Philipp Telemann
, Johann Sebastian Bach
, George Frideric Handel
, Pietro Locatelli
, 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 (oboe
, trumpet
, flute
, or horn
).
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
. As the harpsichord evolved into the fortepiano
, and in the end to the modern piano
, the increased volume and the richer sound of the new instrument allowed the keyboard instrument to better compete with a full orchestra.
Cello concertos have been written since the Baroque era if not earlier. Among the works from that period, those by Antonio Vivaldi
and Giuseppe Tartini
are still part of the standard repertoire today.
are perhaps the best links between those of the Baroque period and those of Mozart
. C.P.E. Bach’s
keyboard concerti contain some brilliant soloistic 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 boy, made arrangements for harpsichord and orchestra of 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. He wrote one concerto each 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 a Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra. They all exploit and explore the characteristics of the solo instrument. His five violin concerti, written in quick succession, show a number of influences, notably Italian and Austria
n. Several passages have leanings towards folk music
, as manifested in Austrian serenade
s. However, it was in his twenty-seven original piano concerti that he excelled himself. It is conventional to state that the first movements of concerti from the Classical period onwards follow the structure of sonata form
.
display flourished as never before. It was the age in which the artist was seen as hero, to be worshipped and adulated with rapture. 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. Beethoven
’s Violin Concerto
is unique in its scale and melodic qualities. Recitative
elements are often incorporated, showing the influence of Italian opera
on purely instrumental forms. Mendelssohn
opens his violin concerto (1844) with the singing qualities of the violin solo. Even later passage work is dramatic and recitative-like, rather than merely virtuosic. The wind instruments state the lyrical second subject over a low pedal G on the violin – certainly an innovation. The cadenza, placed at the start of the recapitulation, is fully written out and integrated into the structure.
The great violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini
was a legendary figure who, as a composer, exploited the technical potential of his instrument to its very limits. Each one exploits rhapsodic ideas but is unique in its own form. The Belgian
violinist Henri Vieuxtemps
contributed several works to this form. Édouard Lalo
's Symphonie Espagnole (1875) displays virtuoso writing with a Spanish flavor. Max Bruch
wrote three violin concertos, but it is the first, in G minor, that has remained a firm favorite in the repertoire. The opening movement relates so closely to the two remaining movements that it functions like an operatic prelude
. Tchaikovsky’s
violin concerto (1878) is a powerful work which succeeds in being lyrical as well as superbly virtuosic. In the same year Brahms
wrote his violin concerto for the virtuoso Joseph Joachim
. This work makes new demands on the player, so much so that when it was first written it was referred to as a "concerto against the violin". The first movement brings the concerto into the realm of symphonic development. The second movement is traditionally lyrical, and the finale is based on a lively Hungarian
theme.
’s cello concerto ranks among the supreme examples from the Romantic era while those of Robert Schumann
, Carl Reinecke
, David Popper
, and Julius Klengel
focus on the lyrical qualities of the instrument. Beethoven
contributed to the repertoire 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. 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
which was only completed in 2006. Elgar's popular concerto, while written in the early 20th century, belongs to the late romantic period stylistically. In addition, Ernest Bloch
wrote Schelomo
, Rhapsodie Hébraïque for cello solo and orchestra in the 20th century.
Today's 'core' repertoire which is performed the most of any cello concertos are by Elgar
, Dvořák
, Saint-Saëns, Haydn, Shostakovich
, Tchaikovsky and Schumann but there are many more concertos which are performed nearly as often (see below: cello concertos in the 20th century).
. There is no lyrical second subject, but in its place a continuous development of the opening material. He also wrote a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello, and orchestra.
The piano concertos of Mendelssohn
, Field
, and Hummel
provide a link from the Classical concerto to the Romantic concerto. Chopin
wrote two piano concertos in which the orchestra is very much relegated to an accompanying role. Schumann, despite being a pianist-composer, wrote a piano concerto in which virtuosity is never allowed to eclipse the essential lyrical quality of the work. The gentle, expressive melody heard at the beginning on woodwind and horns (after the piano’s heralding introductory chords) bears the material for most of the argument in the first movement. In fact, argument in the traditional developmental sense is replaced by a kind of variation technique in which soloist and orchestra interweave their ideas.
Liszt
's mastery of piano technique matched that of Paganini for the violin. His concertos No. 1
and No. 2
left a deep impression on the style of piano concerto writing, influencing Rubinstein
, and especially Tchaikovsky
, whose first piano concerto's rich chordal opening is justly famous. Grieg’s
concerto likewise begins in a striking manner after which it continues in a lyrical vein.
Brahms
's First Piano Concerto in D minor (pub 1861) was the result of an immense amount of work on a mass of material originally intended for a symphony. His Second Piano Concerto in B major (1881) has four movements and is written on a larger scale than any earlier concerto. Like his violin concerto, it is symphonic in proportions.
Fewer piano concertos were written in the late Romantic Period. But Grieg-inspired Sergei Rachmaninoff
wrote 4 piano concertos between 1891 and 1926. His 2nd
and 3rd
, being the most popular of the 4, went on to become among the most famous in piano repertoire and shining examples of Russian musicianship.
. Max Bruch wrote a popular Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, César Franck
wrote Les Djinns and Variations symphoniques
, and Gabriel Fauré
wrote a Ballade
for piano and orchestra. Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme
for cello and orchestra have an important place in the instrument's repertoire. Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
is widely considered to be structured similarly to a piano concerto.
(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 which 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
, the wider acceptance of dissonances
, the invention of the twelve-tone technique
of composition and the use of polyrhythm
s and complex time signature
s.
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 in order to include new and extended instrumental techniques as well as a focus on aspects of sound that had been neglected or even ignored before such as pitch
, timbre
and dynamics
. In some cases, they also brought about a new approach to the role of the soloist and its relation to the orchestra.
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. Bartók
, another major 20th century composer, wrote two important concertos for violin. Russian composers Prokofiev and Shostakovich
both 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 which he used was different.
Three violin concertos from David Diamond
show the form in neoclassical style.
More recently, 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 Jean Sibelius
, Ralph Vaughan Williams
, Walton
, Benjamin Britten
, Frank Martin
, Carl Nielsen
, Paul Hindemith
, Alfred Schnittke
, György Ligeti
, Philip Glass
, John Adams, and Kan-no
.
An important factor in this phenomenon 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. His creations include such masterpieces as 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, Witold Lutosławski's cello concerto, Dmitri 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: György Ligeti
, Alexander Glazunov
, Paul Hindemith
, Toru Takemitsu
, Darius Milhaud
, Arthur Honegger
, Nikolai Myaskovsky
, Samuel Barber
, Joaquín Rodrigo
, Elliot Carter, Erich Wolfgang Korngold
, William Walton
, Heitor Villa-Lobos
, Hans Werner Henze
, Bernd Alois Zimmermann
and Einojuhani Rautavaara
for instance.
’s Piano Concerto
is a well known example of piano concerti. In addition,
Stravinsky wrote three works for solo piano and orchestra: Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra
, and Movements for Piano and Orchestra. Prokofiev
, another Russian composer, wrote no less than five piano concertos which he himself performed. Shostakovich
composed two. Fellow soviet composer Khachaturian contributed to the repertoire with a piano concerto
and a Concerto-Rhapsody.
Bartók also wrote three piano concertos. Like their violin counterparts, they show the various stages in his musical development.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
wrote concertos for piano and for two pianos while Britten's concerto for piano (1938) is a fine work from his early period.
György Ligeti
's concerto is a good example of a more recent piece (1985) that uses complex rhythms. Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin
has written six piano concertos.
Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara
wrote three piano concertos, the third one dedicated to Vladimir Ashkenazy
, who played and conducted the world première.
Among the works of the prolific composer Alan Hovhaness
may be noted Prayer of St. Gregory for trumpet and strings.
Today the concerto tradition has been continued by composers such as Maxwell Davies
, whose series of Strathclyde Concertos
exploit some of the instruments less familiar as soloists.
Dutilleux
has also described his Métaboles as a concerto for orchestra, while Britten
's well-known pedagogical work The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra
is essentially a concerto for orchestra in all but name.
In the Baroque era:
In the Classical era:
In the Romantic era:
In the 20th century:
In the 21st century:
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
, in which (usually) one solo instrument (for instance, a piano, violin, cello or flute) is accompanied by an orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
.
The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words conserere (meaning to tie, to join, to weave) and certamen (competition, fight): the idea is that the two parts in a concerto, the soloist and the orchestra, alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence in the creation of the music flow.
The concerto, as understood in this modern way, arose in the Baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
period side by side with the concerto grosso
Concerto grosso
The concerto grosso is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists and full orchestra...
, which contrasted a small group of instruments with the rest of the orchestra. The popularity of the concerto grosso form declined after the Baroque period, and the genre was not revived until the 20th century. The solo concerto, however, has remained a vital musical force from its inception to this day.
Baroque concerto
The concerto was established as a form of composition in the BaroqueBaroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
period.
Starting from a form called Concerto grosso
Concerto grosso
The concerto grosso is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists and full orchestra...
introduced by Arcangelo Corelli
Arcangelo Corelli
Arcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music.-Biography:Corelli was born at Fusignano, in the current-day province of Ravenna, although at the time it was in the province of Ferrara. Little is known about his early life...
, it evolved into the form we understand today as performance of a soloist with/against an orchestra.
The main composers of concerti of the baroque were: Tommaso Albinoni, Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
, Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually...
, Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, Pietro Locatelli
Pietro Locatelli
Pietro Antonio Locatelli was an Italian composer and violinist.-Biography:Locatelli was born in Bergamo, Italy. A child prodigy on the violin, he was sent to study in Rome under the direction of Arcangelo Corelli...
, Giuseppe Tartini
Giuseppe Tartini
Giuseppe Tartini was an Italian baroque composer and violinist.-Biography:Tartini was born in Piran, a town on the peninsula of Istria, in the Republic of Venice to Gianantonio – native of Florence – and Caterina Zangrando, a descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic Piranian families.It...
, Francesco Geminiani
Francesco Geminiani
thumb|230px|Francesco Geminiani.Francesco Saverio Geminiani was an Italian violinist, composer, and music theorist.-Biography:...
and Johann Joachim Quantz
Johann Joachim Quantz
Johann Joachim Quantz was a German flutist, flute maker and composer.-Biography:Quantz was born in Oberscheden, near Göttingen, Germany, and died in Potsdam....
.
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
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
, cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, seldom viola d'amore
Viola d'amore
The viola d'amore is a 7- or 6-stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin.- Structure and sound :...
or harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
) or a wind instrument (oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
, trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
, flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, or horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
).
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
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
. As the harpsichord evolved into the fortepiano
Fortepiano
Fortepiano designates the early version of the piano, from its invention by the Italian instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori around 1700 up to the early 19th century. It was the instrument for which Haydn, Mozart, and the early Beethoven wrote their piano music...
, and in the end to the modern piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, the increased volume and the richer sound of the new instrument allowed the keyboard instrument to better compete with a full orchestra.
Cello concertos have been written since the Baroque era if not earlier. Among the works from that period, those by Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
and Giuseppe Tartini
Giuseppe Tartini
Giuseppe Tartini was an Italian baroque composer and violinist.-Biography:Tartini was born in Piran, a town on the peninsula of Istria, in the Republic of Venice to Gianantonio – native of Florence – and Caterina Zangrando, a descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic Piranian families.It...
are still part of the standard repertoire today.
Classical concerto
The concerti of the sons of Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
are perhaps the best links between those of the Baroque period and those of Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
. C.P.E. Bach’s
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
right|250pxCarl Philipp Emanuel Bach was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach...
keyboard concerti contain some brilliant soloistic 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 boy, made arrangements for harpsichord and orchestra of three sonata movements by Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
. 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. He wrote one concerto each for flute, oboe
Oboe Concerto (Mozart)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Oboe Concerto in C major, K. 314 was originally composed in Spring or Summer 1777 for oboist Giuseppe Ferlendis from Bergamo, then reworked by the composer as a concerto for flute in D major in 1778...
(later rearranged for flute and known as Flute Concerto No. 2), clarinet
Clarinet Concerto (Mozart)
Mozart's Clarinet concerto in A major, K. 622 was written in 1791 for the clarinetist Anton Stadler.It consists of the usual three movements, in a fast–slow–fast form:# Allegro# Adagio# Rondo: Allegro...
, and bassoon
Bassoon Concerto (Mozart)
The Bassoon Concerto in B flat major, K. 191/186e, written in 1774 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is the most standard piece in the entire bassoon repertory...
, four for horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
, a Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra
Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra (Mozart)
The Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra in C major, K. 299 is a piece by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for flute, harp, and orchestra. It is one of only two true double concertos that he wrote, as well as the only piece of music that Mozart wrote that contains the harp...
, and a Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra. They all exploit and explore the characteristics of the solo instrument. His five violin concerti, written in quick succession, show a number of influences, notably Italian and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n. Several passages have leanings towards folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, as manifested in Austrian serenade
Serenade
In music, a serenade is a musical composition, and/or performance, in someone's honor. Serenades are typically calm, light music.The word Serenade is derived from the Italian word sereno, which means calm....
s. However, it was in his twenty-seven original piano concerti that he excelled himself. It is conventional to state that the first movements of concerti from the Classical period onwards follow the structure of sonata form
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
.
Romantic concerto
In the romantic era, the concerto largely narrowed to three genres: the violin concerto, the cello concerto and the piano concerto. Virtually no major composer wrote concertos for wind instruments.Violin concertos
In the 19th century the concerto was a vehicle for virtuosicVirtuoso
A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...
display flourished as never before. It was the age in which the artist was seen as hero, to be worshipped and adulated with rapture. Early Romantic traits can be found in the violin concertos of Viotti
Giovanni Battista Viotti
Giovanni Battista Viotti was an Italian violinist whose virtuosity was famed and whose work as a composer featured a prominent violin and an appealing lyrical tunefulness...
, but it is Spohr’s
Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludewig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name. Described by Dorothy Mayer as "The Forgotten Master", Spohr was once as famous as Beethoven. As a violinist, his virtuoso playing was admired by Queen Victoria...
twelve violin concertos, written between 1802 and 1827, that truly embrace the Romantic spirit with their melodic as well as their dramatic qualities. Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
’s Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, was written in 1806.The work was premiered on 23 December 1806 in the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. Beethoven wrote the concerto for his colleague Franz Clement, a leading violinist of the day, who had earlier given him helpful advice on...
is unique in its scale and melodic qualities. Recitative
Recitative
Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
elements are often incorporated, showing the influence of Italian opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
on purely instrumental forms. Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
opens his violin concerto (1844) with the singing qualities of the violin solo. Even later passage work is dramatic and recitative-like, rather than merely virtuosic. The wind instruments state the lyrical second subject over a low pedal G on the violin – certainly an innovation. The cadenza, placed at the start of the recapitulation, is fully written out and integrated into the structure.
The great violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was one of the most celebrated violin virtuosi of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique...
was a legendary figure who, as a composer, exploited the technical potential of his instrument to its very limits. Each one exploits rhapsodic ideas but is unique in its own form. The Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
violinist Henri Vieuxtemps
Henri Vieuxtemps
Henri François Joseph Vieuxtemps was a Belgian composer and violinist. He occupies an important place in the history of the violin as a prominent exponent of the Franco-Belgian violin school during the mid-19th century....
contributed several works to this form. Édouard Lalo
Édouard Lalo
Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer.-Biography:Lalo was born in Lille , in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck...
's Symphonie Espagnole (1875) displays virtuoso writing with a Spanish flavor. Max Bruch
Max Bruch
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
wrote three violin concertos, but it is the first, in G minor, that has remained a firm favorite in the repertoire. The opening movement relates so closely to the two remaining movements that it functions like an operatic prelude
Prelude (music)
A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...
. Tchaikovsky’s
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
violin concerto (1878) is a powerful work which succeeds in being lyrical as well as superbly virtuosic. In the same year Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
wrote his violin concerto for the virtuoso Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
. This work makes new demands on the player, so much so that when it was first written it was referred to as a "concerto against the violin". The first movement brings the concerto into the realm of symphonic development. The second movement is traditionally lyrical, and the finale is based on a lively Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
theme.
Cello concertos
Since the Romantic era, the cello has received as much attention as the piano and violin as a concerto instrument, and many great Romantic and even more 20th century composers left examples. Antonín DvořákAntonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
’s cello concerto ranks among the supreme examples from the Romantic era while those of Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Carl Reinecke
Carl Reinecke
Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a German composer, conductor, and pianist.-Biography:Reinecke was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany; until 1864 the town was under Danish rule. He studied with his father, Johann Peter Rudolph Reinecke, a music teacher...
, David Popper
David Popper
David Popper was a Bohemian cellist and composer.-Life:He was born in Prague, and studied music at the Prague Conservatory. He studied the cello under Julius Goltermann , and soon attracted attention...
, and Julius Klengel
Julius Klengel
Julius Klengel was a German cellist who is most famous for his etudes and solo pieces written for the instrument. He was the brother of Paul Klengel....
focus on the lyrical qualities of the instrument. Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
contributed to the repertoire with a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello and orchestra while later in the century, Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
wrote a Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra. The instrument was also popular with composers of the Franco-Belgian tradition: Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
and Vieuxtemps
Henri Vieuxtemps
Henri François Joseph Vieuxtemps was a Belgian composer and violinist. He occupies an important place in the history of the violin as a prominent exponent of the Franco-Belgian violin school during the mid-19th century....
wrote two cello concertos each and Lalo
Édouard Lalo
Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer.-Biography:Lalo was born in Lille , in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck...
and Jongen
Joseph Jongen
Marie-Alphonse-Nicolas-Joseph Jongen was a Belgian organist, composer, and music educator.-Biography:Jongen was born in Liège. On the strength of an amazing precocity for music, he was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven, and spent the next sixteen years...
one. Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
’s contribution to the genre is a series of Variations on a Rococo Theme
Variations on a Rococo Theme
The Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, for cello and orchestra was the closest Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ever came to writing a full concerto for cello and orchestra. The style was inspired by Mozart, Tchaikovsky's role model, and makes it clear that Tchaikovsky admired the Classical style very...
. He also left very fragmentary sketches of a projected Cello Concerto
Cello Concerto (Tchaikovsky)
The Cello Concerto of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is a conjectural work based in part on a 60-bar fragment found on the back of the rough draft for the last movement of the composer's Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique...
which was only completed in 2006. Elgar's popular concerto, while written in the early 20th century, belongs to the late romantic period stylistically. In addition, Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer.-Life:Bloch was born in Geneva and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe...
wrote Schelomo
Schelomo
Schelomo is a cello concerto written by Ernest Bloch, first published in 1916 and receiving its first premiere on May 3, 1917 in Carnegie Hall, New York City. This Rhapsodie hébraïque pour violoncelle et grand orchestre was completed during Bloch's "Jewish Cycle," which lasted from 1912 to 1926...
, Rhapsodie Hébraïque for cello solo and orchestra in the 20th century.
Today's 'core' repertoire which is performed the most of any cello concertos are by Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
, Saint-Saëns, Haydn, Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, Tchaikovsky and Schumann but there are many more concertos which are performed nearly as often (see below: cello concertos in the 20th century).
Piano concertos
Beethoven’s five piano concertos increase the technical demands made on the soloist. The last two are particularly remarkable, integrating the concerto into a large symphonic structure with movements that frequently run into one another. His Piano Concerto no 4 starts, against tradition, with a statement by the piano, after which the orchestra magically enters in a foreign key, to present what would normally have been the opening tutti. The work has an essentially lyrical character. The slow movement is a dramatic dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra. Concerto no 5 has the basic rhythm of a Viennese military marchMarch (music)
A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...
. There is no lyrical second subject, but in its place a continuous development of the opening material. He also wrote a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello, and orchestra.
The piano concertos of Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
, Field
John Field (composer)
John Field was an Irish pianist, composer, and teacher. He was born in Dublin into a musical family, and received his early education there. The Fields soon moved to London, where Field studied under Muzio Clementi...
, and Hummel
Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Jan Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.- Life :...
provide a link from the Classical concerto to the Romantic concerto. Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
wrote two piano concertos in which the orchestra is very much relegated to an accompanying role. Schumann, despite being a pianist-composer, wrote a piano concerto in which virtuosity is never allowed to eclipse the essential lyrical quality of the work. The gentle, expressive melody heard at the beginning on woodwind and horns (after the piano’s heralding introductory chords) bears the material for most of the argument in the first movement. In fact, argument in the traditional developmental sense is replaced by a kind of variation technique in which soloist and orchestra interweave their ideas.
Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
's mastery of piano technique matched that of Paganini for the violin. His concertos No. 1
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Liszt)
Franz Liszt composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, S.124 over a 26-year period; the main themes date from 1830, while the final version dates 1849. The concerto consists of four movements, which are performed without breaks in between, and lasts approximately 20 minutes...
and No. 2
Piano Concerto No. 2 (Liszt)
Franz Liszt wrote drafts for his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in A major, S.125, during his virtuoso period, in 1839 to 1840. He then put away the manuscript for a decade. When he returned to the concerto, he revised and scrutinized it repeatedly. The fourth and final period of revision...
left a deep impression on the style of piano concerto writing, influencing Rubinstein
Rubinstein
Famous people named Rubinstein include:* Anton Rubinstein , a Russian pianist, composer and conductor, brother of Nikolai Rubinstein* Arthur Rubinstein , a famous Polish-American pianist, not related to Anton....
, and especially Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
, whose first piano concerto's rich chordal opening is justly famous. Grieg’s
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
concerto likewise begins in a striking manner after which it continues in a lyrical vein.
Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
's First Piano Concerto in D minor (pub 1861) was the result of an immense amount of work on a mass of material originally intended for a symphony. His Second Piano Concerto in B major (1881) has four movements and is written on a larger scale than any earlier concerto. Like his violin concerto, it is symphonic in proportions.
Fewer piano concertos were written in the late Romantic Period. But Grieg-inspired Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
wrote 4 piano concertos between 1891 and 1926. His 2nd
Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rachmaninoff)
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901. The second and third movements were first performed with the composer as soloist on 2 December 1900...
and 3rd
Piano Concerto No. 3 (Rachmaninoff)
The Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, composed in 1909 by Sergei Rachmaninoff is famous for its technical and musical demands on the performer...
, being the most popular of the 4, went on to become among the most famous in piano repertoire and shining examples of Russian musicianship.
Small-scale works
Besides the usual three-movement works with the title "concerto", many 19th-century composers wrote shorter pieces for solo instrument and orchestra, often bearing descriptive titles. From around 1800 such pieces were often called Konzertstück or Phantasie by German composers. Liszt wrote the Totentanz for piano and orchestra, a paraphrase of the Dies IraeDies Irae
Dies Irae is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano . It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic...
. Max Bruch wrote a popular Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, César Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
wrote Les Djinns and Variations symphoniques
Symphonic Variations (Franck)
The Symphonic Variations , M. 46, is a work for piano and orchestra, written in 1885 by César Franck. It has been described as "one of Franck's tightest and most finished works", "a superb blending of piano and orchestra", and "a flawless work and as near perfection as a human composer can hope to...
, and Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
wrote a Ballade
Ballade
The ballade is a form of French poetry. It was one of the three formes fixes and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries....
for piano and orchestra. Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme
Variations on a Rococo Theme
The Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, for cello and orchestra was the closest Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ever came to writing a full concerto for cello and orchestra. The style was inspired by Mozart, Tchaikovsky's role model, and makes it clear that Tchaikovsky admired the Classical style very...
for cello and orchestra have an important place in the instrument's repertoire. Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in A minor, Op. 43 is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff. It is written for solo piano and symphony orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto. The work was written at Villa Senar, according to the score, from July 3 to August 18, 1934...
is widely considered to be structured similarly to a piano concerto.
20th century
Many of the concertos written in the early 20th century belong more to the late Romantic school than to any modernistic movement. Masterpieces were written by Edward ElgarEdward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
(a violin concerto and a cello concerto), Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
and Nikolai Medtner
Nikolai Medtner
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was a Russian composer and pianist.A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano...
(four and three piano concertos, respectively), Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
(a violin concerto), Frederick Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
(a violin concerto, a cello concerto, a piano concerto and a double concerto for violin and cello), Karol Szymanowski
Karol Szymanowski
Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...
(two violin concertos and a "Symphonie Concertante" for piano), and Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
(two horn concertos, a violin concerto, Don Quixote —a tone poem which 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
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
, 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
Musical mode
In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...
, the exploration of non-western scales
Musical scale
In music, a scale is a sequence of musical notes in ascending and descending order. Most commonly, especially in the context of the common practice period, the notes of a scale will belong to a single key, thus providing material for or being used to conveniently represent part or all of a musical...
, the development of atonality
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
, the wider acceptance of dissonances
Consonance and dissonance
In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...
, the invention of the twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
of composition and the use of polyrhythm
Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms.Polyrhythm in general is a nonspecific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney Polyrhythms can be distinguished from...
s and complex time signature
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
s.
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 in order to include new and extended instrumental techniques as well as a focus on aspects of sound that had been neglected or even ignored before such as pitch
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
, timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
and dynamics
Dynamics (music)
In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
. In some cases, they also brought about a new approach to the role of the soloist and its relation to the orchestra.
Violin concertos
Two great innovators of early 20th-century music, SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
and Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, both wrote violin concertos. The material in Schoenberg’s concerto, like that in Berg’s
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
, is linked by the twelve-tone serial
Twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
method. Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, another major 20th century composer, wrote two important concertos for violin. Russian composers Prokofiev and Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
both wrote two concertos while Khachaturian wrote a concerto and a Concerto-Rhapsody for the instrument. Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
’s concertos hark back to the forms of the 19th century, even if the harmonic language which he used was different.
Three violin concertos from David Diamond
David Diamond (composer)
David Leo Diamond was an American composer of classical music.-Life and career:He was born in Rochester, New York and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Eastman School of Music under Bernard Rogers, also receiving lessons from Roger Sessions in New York City and Nadia Boulanger in...
show the form in neoclassical style.
More recently, 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 Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
, Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
, Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, Frank Martin
Frank Martin (composer)
Frank Martin was a Swiss composer, who lived a large part of his life in the Netherlands.-Childhood and youth:...
, Carl Nielsen
Carl Nielsen
Carl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
, Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...
, György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
, Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, John Adams, and Kan-no
Shigeru Kan-no
is a Japanese composer and conductor living in Germany.-Biography:Shigeru Kan-no was born in Fukushima, Japan. He now lives as a free-lance composer and conductor in Westerwald, Germany. His repertoire includes over 100 operas and 700 concert pieces. He is also a talented musician, able to play...
.
Cello concertos
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.An important factor in this phenomenon was the rise of virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...
. His outstanding technique and passionate playing prompted dozens of composers to write pieces for him, first in his native Soviet Union and then abroad. His creations include such masterpieces as Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
's Symphony-Concerto
Symphony-Concerto (Prokofiev)
Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto in E minor, Op. 125 is a large-scale work for cello and orchestra. Prokofiev dedicated it to Mstislav Rostropovich, who premiered it on February 18, 1952 with Sviatoslav Richter conducting . After this first performance Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto in E...
, Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
's two cello concertos, Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's Cello-Symphony (which emphasizes, as its title suggests, the equal importance of soloist and orchestra), Henri Dutilleux
Henri Dutilleux
Henri Dutilleux is one of the most important French composers of the second half of the 20th century, producing work in the tradition of Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Albert Roussel, but in a style distinctly his own...
' Tout un monde lointain, Witold Lutosławski's cello concerto, Dmitri Kabalevsky
Dmitri Kabalevsky
Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky was a Russian composer.He helped to set up the Union of Soviet Composers in Moscow and remained one of its leading figures. He was a prolific composer of piano music and chamber music; many of his piano works have been performed by Vladimir Horowitz. He is probably...
's two cello concertos, Aram Khachaturian
Aram Khachaturian
Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was a prominent Soviet composer. Khachaturian's works were often influenced by classical Russian music and Armenian folk music...
's Concerto-Rhapsody, Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
's Pro et Contra, Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...
, André Jolivet
André Jolivet
André Jolivet was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet's music draws on his interest in acoustics and atonality as well as both ancient and modern influences in music, particularly on instruments used in ancient times...
and Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
second cello concertos, Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, is a Russian composer of half Russian, half Tatar ethnicity.Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations...
's Canticles of the Sun, Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
's Ritorno degli Snovidenia, Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's Three Meditations, James MacMillan's cello concerto and Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
's Concert à quatre
Concert à quatre
Concert à quatre is one of the final works of the French composer Olivier Messiaen.Written between 1990 and 1991, Messiaen originally intended the piece to have five movements. However, work on another large-scale piece, Éclairs sur l'au-delà…, prevented him from completing it before his death...
(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: György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
, Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...
, Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, Toru Takemitsu
Toru Takemitsu
was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre...
, Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...
, Nikolai Myaskovsky
Nikolai Myaskovsky
Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky was a Russian and Soviet composer. He is sometimes referred to as the "father of the Soviet symphony".-Early years and first important works:...
, Samuel Barber
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...
, Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
, Elliot Carter, Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austro-Hungarian film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...
, William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
, Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...
, Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
, Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century...
and Einojuhani Rautavaara
Einojuhani Rautavaara
Einojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...
for instance.
Piano concertos
SchoenbergSchoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
’s Piano Concerto
Piano Concerto (Schoenberg)
Arnold Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, Op. 42 consists of four interconnected movements: Andante , Molto allegro , Adagio , and Giocoso . It features use of the twelve-tone technique and only one tone row, though he does at points take some liberties with the permutation of the row...
is a well known example of piano concerti. In addition,
Stravinsky wrote three works for solo piano and orchestra: Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra
Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra
The Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra was written by Igor Stravinsky in Nice between 1926 and 1929. The score was revised in 1949.Stravinsky designed the Capriccio to be a virtuosic vehicle which would allow him to earn a living from playing the piano part...
, and Movements for Piano and Orchestra. Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
, another Russian composer, wrote no less than five piano concertos which he himself performed. Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
composed two. Fellow soviet composer Khachaturian contributed to the repertoire with a piano concerto
Piano Concerto (Khachaturian)
Aram Khachaturian's Piano Concerto in D-flat major, Op. 38, was composed in 1936. It was his first work to bring him recognition in the West, and it immediately entered the repertoire of many notable pianists....
and a Concerto-Rhapsody.
Bartók also wrote three piano concertos. Like their violin counterparts, they show the various stages in his musical development.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
wrote concertos for piano and for two pianos while Britten's concerto for piano (1938) is a fine work from his early period.
György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
's concerto is a good example of a more recent piece (1985) that uses complex rhythms. Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin
Rodion Shchedrin
Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin is a Russian composer. He was one оf the leading Soviet composers, and was the chairman of the Union of Russian Composers from 1973 until 1990.-Life and Works:...
has written six piano concertos.
Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara
Einojuhani Rautavaara
Einojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...
wrote three piano concertos, the third one dedicated to Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian-Icelandic conductor and pianist. Since 1972 he has been a citizen of Iceland, his wife Þórunn's country of birth. Since 1978, because of his many obligations in Europe, he and his family have resided in Meggen, near Lucerne in Switzerland...
, who played and conducted the world première.
Concertos for other instruments
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. As a result, almost all the instruments of the classical orchestra now have a concertante repertoire. Examples include:- Alto saxophoneAlto saxophoneThe alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...
Concerto:CrestonPaul CrestonPaul Creston was an Italian American composer of classical music.Born in New York City to Sicilian immigrants, Creston was self‐taught as a composer. He was an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, initiated into the national honorary Alpha Alpha chapter...
, DahlIngolf DahlIngolf Dahl was a German-born American composer, pianist, conductor, and educator.-Biography:Born in Hamburg, Germany to a German father and a Swedish mother, his birth name was Walter Ingolf Marcus. He studied with Philipp Jarnach at the Hochschule für Musik Köln...
, DenisovEdison DenisovEdison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...
, DuboisPierre Max DuboisPierre Max Dubois was a French composer of classical music. He was a student of Darius Milhaud, and though not widely popular, was respected. He brought the ideas of Les Six, of which his instructor was a member, into the middle 1900's. This group called for a fresh artistic perspective on music...
, GlazunovAlexander GlazunovAlexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...
, IbertJacques IbertJacques François Antoine Ibert was a French composer. Having studied music from an early age, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won its top prize, the Prix de Rome at his first attempt, despite studies interrupted by his service in World War I.Ibert pursued a successful composing career,...
, KochErland von KochErland von Koch was a Swedish composer.-Life and career:Born in Stockholm as the son of composer Sigurd von Koch , Erland von Koch studied at the Stockholm Conservatory from 1931 to 1935 and subsequently passed the advanced choirmaster and organist examinations...
, LarssonLars-Erik LarssonLars-Erik Larsson was a notable Swedish composer of the 20th century.-Biography:Lars-Erik Vilner Larsson was born in Åkarp in 1908...
, MaslankaDavid MaslankaDavid Maslanka is a U.S. composer who writes for a variety of genres, including works for choir, wind ensemble, chamber music and symphony orchestra....
, TomasiHenri TomasiHenri Tomasi was a French classical composer and conductor.- The early years :Henri Tomasi was born in Marseille, France, in the working class neighborhood on August 17, 1901. His father Xavier Tomasi and mother Josephine Vincensi were originally from La Casinca, Corsica...
, YoshimatsuTakashi Yoshimatsuis a contemporary Japanese composer of classical music. He is well known for composing the 2003 remake of Astro Boy.Takashi Yoshimatsu was born in Tokyo, Japan, and like Toru Takemitsu, the composer generally considered to be Japan's greatest in the western classical style, did not receive formal... - BandoneónBandoneónThe bandoneón is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It plays an essential role in the orquesta típica, the tango orchestra...
Concerto: PiazzollaÁstor PiazzollaÁstor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music... - Baritone saxophoneBaritone saxophoneThe baritone saxophone, often called "bari sax" , is one of the largest and lowest pitched members of the saxophone family. It was invented by Adolphe Sax. The baritone is distinguished from smaller sizes of saxophone by the extra loop near its mouthpiece...
Concerto: GainesDavid Gaines (composer)David Gaines is an American composer of contemporary classical music.He grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, and was a euphonium and bass trombone player in both bands and orchestras , a backgroundthat enabled him in later years, as a composer, to champion solo opportunities for low brass... - BassoonBassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, Eckhardt-GramattéSophie Carmen Eckhardt-GramattéSophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté was a Russian-born Canadian composer and virtuoso pianist and violinist.Born in Moscow as Sofia Fridman-Kochevskaya, Eckhardt-Gramatté studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, where her teachers included Alfred Brun and Guillaume Rémy for violin, S. Chenée for...
, GubaidulinaSofia GubaidulinaSofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, is a Russian composer of half Russian, half Tatar ethnicity.Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations...
, HétuJacques HétuJacques Hétu, OC was a Canadian composer and music educator from Trois-Rivières, Quebec. He was nominated for a 1989 Juno Award in the Best Classical Composition category...
, JolivetAndré JolivetAndré Jolivet was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet's music draws on his interest in acoustics and atonality as well as both ancient and modern influences in music, particularly on instruments used in ancient times...
, DaviesPeter Maxwell DaviesSir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
, PanufnikAndrzej PanufnikSir Andrzej Panufnik was a Polish composer, pianist, conductor and pedagogue. He became established as one of the leading Polish composers, and as a conductor he was instrumental in the re-establishment of the Warsaw Philharmonic orchestra after World War II...
, Sæverud, J. WilliamsJohn WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T... - Bass clarinetBass clarinetThe bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
Concerto: BoulianeDenys BoulianeDenys Bouliane is a Canadian composer and conductor.-Biography:He is a graduate of Laval University . He studied music composition in the Neue Musik Theater class of Mauricio Kagel in Cologne followed by studies with György Ligeti until 1985... - Bass oboeBass oboeThe bass oboe or baritone oboe is a double reed instrument in the woodwind family. It is about twice the size of a regular oboe and sounds an octave lower; it has a deep, full tone not unlike that of its higher-pitched cousin, the English horn. The bass oboe is notated in the treble clef, sounding...
Concerto: BryarsGavin BryarsRichard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.-Early life and career:Born in Goole, East... - ClarinetClarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, CoplandAaron CoplandAaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
, DenisovEdison DenisovEdison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...
, DusapinPascal DusapinPascal Dusapin , is a French composer born in Nancy. He is one of France's best-known living composers; his works have been performed worldwide....
, FairouzMohammed FairouzMohammed Fairouz is an Arab American composer.Having fulfilling many commissions and created a substantial body of frequently performed works, he is considered one of the most sought after composers of the young generation. Fairouz began composing at an early age and studied at the New England...
, FrançaixJean FrançaixJean René Désiré Françaix was a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator, known for his prolific output and vibrant style.-Life:...
, HétuJacques HétuJacques Hétu, OC was a Canadian composer and music educator from Trois-Rivières, Quebec. He was nominated for a 1989 Juno Award in the Best Classical Composition category...
, HindemithPaul HindemithPaul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, Kan-noShigeru Kan-nois a Japanese composer and conductor living in Germany.-Biography:Shigeru Kan-no was born in Fukushima, Japan. He now lives as a free-lance composer and conductor in Westerwald, Germany. His repertoire includes over 100 operas and 700 concert pieces. He is also a talented musician, able to play...
, NielsenCarl NielsenCarl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
, PendereckiKrzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
, RautavaaraEinojuhani RautavaaraEinojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...
, StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, TakemitsuToru Takemitsuwas a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre...
, TomasiHenri TomasiHenri Tomasi was a French classical composer and conductor.- The early years :Henri Tomasi was born in Marseille, France, in the working class neighborhood on August 17, 1901. His father Xavier Tomasi and mother Josephine Vincensi were originally from La Casinca, Corsica...
, J. WilliamsJohn WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T... - ContrabassoonContrabassoonThe contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, ErbDonald ErbDonald Erb was an American composer best known for large orchestral works such as Concerto for Brass and Orchestra and Ritual Observances.-Early years:... - CornetCornetThe cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
Concerto: WrightWrightWright is an occupational surname originating in England. The term Wright comes from the circa 700 AD Old English word "wryhta" or "wyrhta", meaning worker or shaper of wood. Later it became any occupational worker , and is used as a British family name... - Double bassDouble bassThe double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, BottesiniGiovanni BottesiniGiovanni Bottesini was an Italian Romantic composer, conductor, and a double bass virtuoso.-Biography:Born in Crema, Lombardy, he was taught the rudiments of music by his father, an accomplished clarinetist and composer, at a young age and had played timpani in Crema with the Teatro Sociale before...
, DragonettiDragonettiDragonetti is surname of:* Damien Dragonetti , an American rapper/producer* Domenico Carlo Maria Dragonetti , an Italian double bass virtuoso* John Dragonetti- See also :* Dragonetti, a part of Filiano...
, HenzeHans Werner HenzeHans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
, Koussevitsky, DaviesPeter Maxwell DaviesSir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
, OhzawaHisato ohzawawas a Japanese composer. His relative neglect today contrasts with the fact that he was one of the pre-eminent Japanese composers of his day.- Biography :He grew up in Kobe, studying piano, organ and choral singing...
RautavaaraEinojuhani RautavaaraEinojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...
, TubinEduard Tubin-Life:Tubin was born in Torila, Governorate of Livonia, Estonia. Both his parents were music lovers, and his father played trumpet and trombone in the village band. His first taste of music came at school where he learned flute and balalaika. Later, his father swapped a cow for a piano, and the... - Drum set Concerto : BeckJohn Beck (musician)John Beck is an English musician in progressive rock band, It Bites.-Work:John Beck is a writer, producer, keyboard player and guitarist known for his work with Tasmin Archer and Corinne Bailey Rae....
- EuphoniumEuphoniumThe euphonium is a conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument. It derives its name from the Greek word euphonos, meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced"...
Concerto: CosmaVladimir CosmaVladimir Cosma was born April 13, 1940 in Bucharest, Romania, into a family of musicians.His father, Teodor Cosma, was a pianist and conductor, his mother a writer-composer, his uncle, Edgar Cosma, composer and conductor, and one of his grandmothers, pianist, a student of the renowned Ferrucio...
, EwazenEric EwazenEric Ewazen is an American composer and teacher. Ewazen studied composition under Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, Gunther Schuller, Joseph Schwantner, Warren Benson, and Eugene Kurtz at the Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School...
, GillinghamDavid GillinghamDavid R. Gillingham is a contemporary composer. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh for his undergraduate degree in Music Education and Michigan State University for his PhD in Music Composition/Theory. He currently serves as professor of music theory and composition at Central...
, GollandJohn GollandJohn Golland was an English composer.He is most famous for his works for brass band, such as Sounds, Atmospheres, Peace, Rêves d'Enfant,his two euphonium concerti and a flugelhorn concerto. He also composed incidental music for the BBC sitcom Dear Ladies.-External links:*...
, Graham, HorovitzJoseph HorovitzJoseph Horovitz is a British composer and conductor. Horovitz's family emigrated to England in 1938. He studied music and modern languages at New College, Oxford, and later attended the Royal College of Music in London, studying composition with Gordon Jacob. He then undertook a year of further...
, LindbergChristian LindbergChristian Lindberg is a Swedish trombonist, conductor and composer.As a youth, Lindberg learned to play the trumpet, and subsequently began to learn the trombone at age 17. He originally borrowed a trombone to join his friends' Dixieland jazz group, inspired by records of Jack Teagarden...
, LinkolaJukka LinkolaJukka Linkola is a Finnish jazz pianist and classical composer. He has composed music for the Finnish National Opera and led several jazz Big Bands In addition he has won two Jussi awards for music.- External links :...
, SparkePhilip SparkePhilip Sparke is a British composer and musician. He is noted for his concert band and brass band music.- Music for Winds :* 1973/1976 Gaudium* 1975 The Prizewinners for Brass-Band* 1978/1995 Fantasy for Euphonium...
, WilbyPhilip WilbyPhilip Wilby is a British composer.Educated at Leeds Grammar School and Keble College, Oxford, he joined the staff at the University of Leeds in 1972...
. - FluteWestern concert fluteThe Western concert flute is a transverse woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, or flute player....
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, DenisovEdison DenisovEdison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...
, DusapinPascal DusapinPascal Dusapin , is a French composer born in Nancy. He is one of France's best-known living composers; his works have been performed worldwide....
, Harman, HétuJacques HétuJacques Hétu, OC was a Canadian composer and music educator from Trois-Rivières, Quebec. He was nominated for a 1989 Juno Award in the Best Classical Composition category...
, IbertJacques IbertJacques François Antoine Ibert was a French composer. Having studied music from an early age, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won its top prize, the Prix de Rome at his first attempt, despite studies interrupted by his service in World War I.Ibert pursued a successful composing career,...
, JolivetAndré JolivetAndré Jolivet was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet's music draws on his interest in acoustics and atonality as well as both ancient and modern influences in music, particularly on instruments used in ancient times...
, NielsenCarl NielsenCarl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
, PendereckiKrzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
, RautavaaraEinojuhani RautavaaraEinojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...
, RodrigoJoaquín RodrigoJoaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
, TakemitsuToru Takemitsuwas a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre...
, J. WilliamsJohn WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T... - Free bass accordion Concerto: Serry, Sr.John Serry, Sr.John Serry, Sr. was an accomplished concert accordionist virtuoso, arranger, composer, organist and educator who performed on the CBS Radio and CBS Television networks...
- GuitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
Concerto: ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, BrouwerLeo BrouwerJuan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor and guitarist. He is the grandson of Cuban composer Ernestina Lecuona Casado.-Biography:...
, Castelnuovo-TedescoMario Castelnuovo-TedescoMario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he migrated to the United States and became a film composer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next...
, CarulliFerdinando CarulliFerdinando Maria Meinrado Francesco Pascale Rosario Carulli was an Italian composer for classical guitar and the author of the first complete classical guitar method, which continues to be used today. He wrote a variety of works for classical guitar, including concertos and chamber works...
, GiulianiMauro GiulianiMauro Giuseppe Sergio Pantaleo Giuliani was an Italian guitarist, cellist and composer, and is considered by many to be one of the leading guitar virtuosi of the early 19th century.- Biography :...
, HovhanessAlan HovhanessAlan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
, OhanaMaurice OhanaMaurice Ohana was an Anglo-French composer of Sephardic Jewish origin.Ohana was born in Casablanca, Morocco. He was a British citizen until 1976, as his father had been born in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. He originally studied architecture, but abandoned this in favour of a...
, Ponce, RodrigoJoaquín RodrigoJoaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
, Villa-LobosHeitor Villa-LobosHeitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works... - HarmonicaHarmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
Concerto: Arnold, Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
, Villa-LobosHeitor Villa-LobosHeitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works... - HarpHarpThe harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
Concerto: GinasteraAlberto GinasteraAlberto Evaristo Ginastera was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important Latin American classical composers.- Biography :...
, GlièreReinhold GlièreReinhold Moritzevich Glière was a Russian and Soviet composer of German–Polish descent.- Biography :Glière was born in Kiev, Ukraine...
, JongenJoseph JongenMarie-Alphonse-Nicolas-Joseph Jongen was a Belgian organist, composer, and music educator.-Biography:Jongen was born in Liège. On the strength of an amazing precocity for music, he was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven, and spent the next sixteen years...
, MilhaudDarius MilhaudDarius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, JolivetAndré JolivetAndré Jolivet was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet's music draws on his interest in acoustics and atonality as well as both ancient and modern influences in music, particularly on instruments used in ancient times...
, RautavaaraEinojuhani RautavaaraEinojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...
, RodrigoJoaquín RodrigoJoaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
, Villa-LobosHeitor Villa-LobosHeitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works... - HarpsichordHarpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
Concerto: de FallaManuel de FallaManuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
, GlassPhilip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, GóreckiHenryk GóreckiHenryk Mikołaj Górecki was a composer of contemporary classical music. He studied at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice between 1955 and 1960. In 1968, he joined the faculty and rose to provost before resigning in 1979. Górecki became a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde during...
, MartinůBohuslav MartinuBohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
, PoulencFrancis PoulencFrancis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music... - HornHorn (instrument)The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, ArutiunianAlexander ArutiunianAlexander Grigorevich Arutiunian , also known as Arutunian, Arutyunyan, Arutjunjan or Harutiunian Alexander Grigorevich Arutiunian (Arm. Ալեքսանդր Գրիգորի Հարությունյան), also known as Arutunian, Arutyunyan, Arutjunjan or Harutiunian Alexander Grigorevich Arutiunian (Arm. Ալեքսանդր Գրիգորի...
, BowenYork BowenEdwin York Bowen was an English composer and pianist. Bowen’s musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a talented conductor, organist, violist and horn player...
, CarterElliott CarterElliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
, DaviesPeter Maxwell DaviesSir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
, GlièreReinhold GlièreReinhold Moritzevich Glière was a Russian and Soviet composer of German–Polish descent.- Biography :Glière was born in Kiev, Ukraine...
, GippsRuth GippsRuth Gipps was a British composer, oboist and pianist.-Biography:Ruth Gipps was born in Bexhill-on-Sea, England in 1921. She was something of a child prodigy, winning performance competitions in which she was considerably younger than the rest of the field -- and female, to boot...
, HindemithPaul HindemithPaul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, HovhanessAlan HovhanessAlan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
, JacobGordon JacobGordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...
, KnussenOliver KnussenOliver Knussen CBE is a British composer and conductor.-Biography:Oliver Knussen was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His father, Stuart Knussen, was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra. Oliver Knussen studied composition with John Lambert, between 1963 and 1969 and also received...
, LigetiGyörgy LigetiGyörgy Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
, MurailTristan MurailTristan Murail is a French composer. His father, Gérard Murail, is a poet and his mother, Marie-Thérèse Barrois, a journalist. One of his brothers, Lorris Murail, and his younger sister Elvire Murail, aka Moka, also write, and his younger sister Marie-Aude Murail is a French children's writer...
, PendereckiKrzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
, StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, TomasiHenri TomasiHenri Tomasi was a French classical composer and conductor.- The early years :Henri Tomasi was born in Marseille, France, in the working class neighborhood on August 17, 1901. His father Xavier Tomasi and mother Josephine Vincensi were originally from La Casinca, Corsica...
, J. WilliamsJohn WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T... - MandolinMandolinA mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
Concerto: ThileChris ThileChristopher Scott Thile is an American musician, best known as the mandolinist and a singer for the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. His current band is Punch Brothers whose most recent album is Antifogmatic... - MarimbaMarimbaThe marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
Concerto: CrestonPaul CrestonPaul Creston was an Italian American composer of classical music.Born in New York City to Sicilian immigrants, Creston was self‐taught as a composer. He was an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, initiated into the national honorary Alpha Alpha chapter...
, LarsenLibby LarsenLibby Larsen is one of America’s most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over fifteen operas...
, MilhaudDarius MilhaudDarius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, RosauroNey RosauroNey Rosauro is a Brazilian composer and percussionist.His compositions include solos for marimba, vibraphone and multi-percussion setups, as well as music for percussion ensembles and orchestras...
, Svoboda, ViñaoAlejandro ViñaoAlejandro Viñao is an Argentinian composer currently living in the United Kingdom.Viñao studied musical composition in Buenos Aires with the composer Jacobo Fischer . In 1976 he was awarded a British Council scholarship to study in London at the Royal College of Music and later on at the City... - OboeOboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, BoulianeDenys BoulianeDenys Bouliane is a Canadian composer and conductor.-Biography:He is a graduate of Laval University . He studied music composition in the Neue Musik Theater class of Mauricio Kagel in Cologne followed by studies with György Ligeti until 1985...
, DenisovEdison DenisovEdison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...
, HarmanChris Paul HarmanChris Paul Harman is a Canadian composer of contemporary classical music.He grew up in Toronto, attending Maurice Cody Public School, then North Toronto Collegiate Institute...
, MacMillan, MadernaBruno MadernaBruno Maderna was an Italian conductor and composer. For the last ten years of his life he lived in Germany and eventually became a citizen of that country.-Biography:...
, MartinůBohuslav MartinuBohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
, PendereckiKrzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
, ShchedrinRodion ShchedrinRodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin is a Russian composer. He was one оf the leading Soviet composers, and was the chairman of the Union of Russian Composers from 1973 until 1990.-Life and Works:...
, StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, Vaughan WilliamsOboe Concerto (Vaughan Williams)Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his Concerto in A minor for Oboe and Strings for soloist Léon Goossens in 1944. This pastoral piece is divided into three movements:# Rondo Pastorale # Minuet and Musette...
, ZimmermannBernd Alois ZimmermannBernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century... - OrganPipe organThe pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
Concerto: ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, HansonHoward HansonHoward Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music...
, HarrisonLou HarrisonLou Silver Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison...
, HétuJacques HétuJacques Hétu, OC was a Canadian composer and music educator from Trois-Rivières, Quebec. He was nominated for a 1989 Juno Award in the Best Classical Composition category...
, HindemithPaul HindemithPaul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, JongenJoseph JongenMarie-Alphonse-Nicolas-Joseph Jongen was a Belgian organist, composer, and music educator.-Biography:Jongen was born in Liège. On the strength of an amazing precocity for music, he was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven, and spent the next sixteen years...
, Kan-noShigeru Kan-nois a Japanese composer and conductor living in Germany.-Biography:Shigeru Kan-no was born in Fukushima, Japan. He now lives as a free-lance composer and conductor in Westerwald, Germany. His repertoire includes over 100 operas and 700 concert pieces. He is also a talented musician, able to play...
, MacMillan, PeetersFlor PeetersFlor Peeters was a Flemish composer, organist and teacher.-Biography:Born and raised in the village of Tielen , he was the youngest child in a family of eleven...
, PoulencFrancis PoulencFrancis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
, RoremNed RoremNed Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...
, SowerbyLeo SowerbyLeo Sowerby , American composer and church musician, was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1946, and was often called the “Dean of American church music” in the early to mid 20th century.-Biography:... - Percussion Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, GlassPhilip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, JolivetAndré JolivetAndré Jolivet was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet's music draws on his interest in acoustics and atonality as well as both ancient and modern influences in music, particularly on instruments used in ancient times...
, MacMillan, MilhaudDarius MilhaudDarius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, RautavaaraEinojuhani RautavaaraEinojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...
, SusmanWilliam SusmanWilliam Joseph Susman, born August 29, 1960 in Chicago, is an American composer of concert and film music as well as an accomplished pianist. He belongs to the generation of American composers that came of age in the late twentieth century, received traditional academic training while remaining... - PiccoloPiccoloThe piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
Concerto: LiebermannLowell LiebermannLowell Liebermann is an American composer, pianist and conductor.At the age of sixteen, Liebermann performed at Carnegie Hall, playing his Piano Sonata, op. 1... - ShakuhachiShakuhachiThe is a Japanese end-blown flute. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in ABS and hardwoods. It was used by the monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism in the practice of...
Concerto: TakemitsuToru Takemitsuwas a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre... - ShengSheng (instrument)The Chinese sheng is a mouth-blown free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes.Traditionally, the sheng has been used as an accompaniment instrument for solo suona or dizi performances. It is one of the main instruments in kunqu and some other forms of Chinese opera...
Concerto: Kan-noShigeru Kan-nois a Japanese composer and conductor living in Germany.-Biography:Shigeru Kan-no was born in Fukushima, Japan. He now lives as a free-lance composer and conductor in Westerwald, Germany. His repertoire includes over 100 operas and 700 concert pieces. He is also a talented musician, able to play...
, Unsuk ChinUnsuk ChinUnsuk Chin , is a South Korean composer of classical music, based in Berlin, Germany. She was awarded the Grawemeyer Award in 2004 and the Arnold Schönberg Prize in 2005.- Biography :...
. - Soprano saxophoneSoprano saxophoneThe soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...
Concerto: MackeyJohn Mackey (composer)John Mackey is an American composer of classical music, with an emphasis on music for wind band, as well as orchestra. For several years, he focused on music for modern dance and ballet.-Background:...
, TorkeMichael TorkeMichael Torke is an American composer who writes music influenced by jazz and minimalism. Sometimes described as a post-minimalist, his most postminimal piece is Four Proverbs, in which the syllable for each pitch is fixed and variations in the melody produce streams of nonsense words. Other works...
, YoshimatsuTakashi Yoshimatsuis a contemporary Japanese composer of classical music. He is well known for composing the 2003 remake of Astro Boy.Takashi Yoshimatsu was born in Tokyo, Japan, and like Toru Takemitsu, the composer generally considered to be Japan's greatest in the western classical style, did not receive formal...
. - Tenor saxophoneTenor saxophoneThe tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
Concerto: BennettRichard Rodney BennettSir Richard Rodney Bennett, CBE is an English composer renowned for his film scores and his jazz performance as much as for his challenging concert works...
, EwazenEric EwazenEric Ewazen is an American composer and teacher. Ewazen studied composition under Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, Gunther Schuller, Joseph Schwantner, Warren Benson, and Eugene Kurtz at the Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School...
, WilderAlec WilderAlec Wilder was an American composer.-Biography:...
. - TimpaniTimpaniTimpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
Concerto : DruschetzkyGeorg DruschetzkyJiří Družecký was a Bohemian composer, oboist, and timpanist.He studied oboe with the noted oboist and composer Carlo Besozzi in Dresden. He then joined the band of an infantry regiment in Eger, with which he was later stationed in Vienna, Enns, Linz, and Branau. In 1777 he was certified as a...
, GlassPhilip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, KraftWilliam KraftWilliam Kraft is a composer, conductor, teacher, and percussionist.-Undergrad and Graduate School Years :...
, RosauroNey RosauroNey Rosauro is a Brazilian composer and percussionist.His compositions include solos for marimba, vibraphone and multi-percussion setups, as well as music for percussion ensembles and orchestras... - TromboneTromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, DusapinPascal DusapinPascal Dusapin , is a French composer born in Nancy. He is one of France's best-known living composers; his works have been performed worldwide....
, HolmboeVagn HolmboeVagn Gylding Holmboe was a Danish composer and teacher who wrote largely in a neo-classical style.-Life:At the age of 16, Holmboe began formal music training at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen on the recommendation of Carl Nielsen. He studied under Knud Jeppesen and Finn Høffding...
, MilhaudDarius MilhaudDarius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, RotaNino RotaNino Rota was an Italian composer and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti...
, Rouse, TomasiHenri TomasiHenri Tomasi was a French classical composer and conductor.- The early years :Henri Tomasi was born in Marseille, France, in the working class neighborhood on August 17, 1901. His father Xavier Tomasi and mother Josephine Vincensi were originally from La Casinca, Corsica...
, Rimsky-KorsakovNikolai Rimsky-KorsakovNikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
, Grondahl - TrumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
Concerto:AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, ArutiunianAlexander ArutiunianAlexander Grigorevich Arutiunian , also known as Arutunian, Arutyunyan, Arutjunjan or Harutiunian Alexander Grigorevich Arutiunian (Arm. Ալեքսանդր Գրիգորի Հարությունյան), also known as Arutunian, Arutyunyan, Arutjunjan or Harutiunian Alexander Grigorevich Arutiunian (Arm. Ալեքսանդր Գրիգորի...
, BöhmeOskar BöhmeOskar Böhme was a German composer and trumpeter.- Life :Oskar Böhme, a son of Wilhelm Böhme, also a trumpeter, was born in Potschappel, a small town near Dresden, Germany...
, JolivetAndré JolivetAndré Jolivet was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet's music draws on his interest in acoustics and atonality as well as both ancient and modern influences in music, particularly on instruments used in ancient times...
, PerryWilliam PerryWilliam James Perry is an American businessman and engineer who was the United States Secretary of Defense from February 3, 1994, to January 23, 1997, under President Bill Clinton...
, WilliamsJohn WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
, ZimmermannBernd Alois ZimmermannBernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century... - TubaTubaThe tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, ArutiunianAlexander ArutiunianAlexander Grigorevich Arutiunian , also known as Arutunian, Arutyunyan, Arutjunjan or Harutiunian Alexander Grigorevich Arutiunian (Arm. Ալեքսանդր Գրիգորի Հարությունյան), also known as Arutunian, Arutyunyan, Arutjunjan or Harutiunian Alexander Grigorevich Arutiunian (Arm. Ալեքսանդր Գրիգորի...
, HolmboeVagn HolmboeVagn Gylding Holmboe was a Danish composer and teacher who wrote largely in a neo-classical style.-Life:At the age of 16, Holmboe began formal music training at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen on the recommendation of Carl Nielsen. He studied under Knud Jeppesen and Finn Høffding...
, Vaughan WilliamsTuba Concerto in F minor (Vaughan Williams)The Tuba Concerto in F minor by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams dates from 1954. Vaughan Williams wrote the concerto for Philip Catelinet, principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra , and Catelinet was the soloist in the premiere on 13 June 1954, with Sir John Barbirolli...
, J. WilliamsJohn WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T... - ViolaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
Concerto: AhoKalevi AhoKalevi Aho is a Finnish composer.- Career :Born in Forssa, he studied composition at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara, receiving a diploma in 1971. He continued his studies for a year in Berlin with Boris Blacher...
, ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, BartókViola Concerto (Bartók)Béla Bartók's Viola Concerto, Sz. 120, BB 128 was written in July – August 1945, in Saranac Lake, New York, while he was suffering from the terminal stages of leukemia. It was commissioned by William Primrose. Along with the Piano Concerto No. 3, it is his last work, and he left it incomplete at...
, DenisovEdison DenisovEdison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...
, GubaidulinaSofia GubaidulinaSofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, is a Russian composer of half Russian, half Tatar ethnicity.Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations...
, HindemithPaul HindemithPaul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, Kan-noShigeru Kan-nois a Japanese composer and conductor living in Germany.-Biography:Shigeru Kan-no was born in Fukushima, Japan. He now lives as a free-lance composer and conductor in Westerwald, Germany. His repertoire includes over 100 operas and 700 concert pieces. He is also a talented musician, able to play...
, KancheliGiya KancheliGiya Kancheli , born 10 August 1935, in Tbilisi, is a Georgian composer resident in Belgium.Since 1991, Kancheli has lived in Western Europe: first in Berlin, and since 1995 in Antwerp, where he is composer-in-residence for the Royal Flemish Philharmonic....
, MartinůBohuslav MartinuBohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
, MilhaudDarius MilhaudDarius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, MurailTristan MurailTristan Murail is a French composer. His father, Gérard Murail, is a poet and his mother, Marie-Thérèse Barrois, a journalist. One of his brothers, Lorris Murail, and his younger sister Elvire Murail, aka Moka, also write, and his younger sister Marie-Aude Murail is a French children's writer...
, PendereckiKrzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
, SchnittkeAlfred SchnittkeAlfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...
, TakemitsuToru Takemitsuwas a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre...
, WaltonViola Concerto (Walton)The Viola Concerto by William Walton was written in 1929 for the violist Lionel Tertis at the suggestion of Sir Thomas Beecham. The concerto carries the dedication "To Christabel" ....
Among the works of the prolific composer Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
may be noted Prayer of St. Gregory for trumpet and strings.
Today the concerto tradition has been continued by composers such as Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
, whose series of Strathclyde Concertos
Strathclyde Concertos
The Strathclyde Concertos are a series of ten orchestral works by the English composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.Commissioned by Strathclyde Regional Council, each work features an instrumental soloist and small orchestra. The first concerto, for oboe and orchestra, appeared in 1986, with the tenth...
exploit some of the instruments less familiar as soloists.
Concertos for orchestra
In the 20th century, several important composers wrote concertos for orchestra. In these works, different sections and/or instruments of the orchestra are treated at one point or another as soloists with emphasis on solo sections and/or instruments changing during the piece. Famous examples include those written by:- Bartók
- Kodály
- Lutoslawski
- Hindemith
- CarterElliott CarterElliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
- LindbergMagnus LindbergMagnus Lindberg is a Finnish composer and pianist. He is currently the composer-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic.-Education:...
- ShchedrinRodion ShchedrinRodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin is a Russian composer. He was one оf the leading Soviet composers, and was the chairman of the Union of Russian Composers from 1973 until 1990.-Life and Works:...
Dutilleux
Henri Dutilleux
Henri Dutilleux is one of the most important French composers of the second half of the 20th century, producing work in the tradition of Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Albert Roussel, but in a style distinctly his own...
has also described his Métaboles as a concerto for orchestra, while Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's well-known pedagogical work The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34, is a musical composition by Benjamin Britten in 1946 with a subtitle "Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell"...
is essentially a concerto for orchestra in all but name.
Concertos for two or more instruments
Many composers also wrote concertos for two or more soloists.In the Baroque era:
- VivaldiAntonio VivaldiAntonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
's concerti for 2, 3 or 4 violins, for 2 cellos, for 2 mandolins, for 2 trumpets, for 2 flutes, for oboe and bassoon, for cello and bassoon... etc. - BachBạchBạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
's concerti for 2 violins, for 2, 3, or 4 harpsichords as well as several of his Brandenburg concertosBrandenburg concertosThe Brandenburg concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721 . They are widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era...
.
In the Classical era:
- MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's concerti for 2 pianos and 3 pianos, the Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola, and his concerto for flute and harp. - SalieriAntonio SalieriAntonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
's Triple Concerto for oboe, violin and cello, and his double concerto for flute and oboe.
In the Romantic era:
- BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's triple concerto for piano, violin, and cello. - BrahmsJohannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
's double concerto for violin and cello. - BruchMax BruchMax Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
's double concerto for viola and clarinet.
In the 20th century:
- Malcolm ArnoldMalcolm ArnoldSir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
's concerto for piano duet and strings, as well as his concerto for two violins and string orchestra - Béla BartókBéla BartókBéla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
's concerto for two pianos and percussion - Samuel BarberSamuel BarberSamuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...
's Capricorn ConcertoCapricorn ConcertoSamuel Barber's Capricorn Concerto , completed 8 September 1944 is a chamber piece for flute, oboe, trumpet and strings. It was premiered by Saidenberg Little Symphony at Town Hall 8 October 1944. It lasts approximately 14 min....
for flute, oboe and trumpet. - Benjamin BrittenBenjamin BrittenEdward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's double concerto for violin and viola. - Elliott CarterElliott CarterElliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
's double concerto for piano and harpsichord. - Frederick DeliusFrederick DeliusFrederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
's double concerto for violin and cello. - Jean FrançaixJean FrançaixJean René Désiré Françaix was a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator, known for his prolific output and vibrant style.-Life:...
's concerto for two pianos and another for two harps, as well as his Divertissement for string trio and orchestra, his Quadruple Concerto for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and orchestra, his Double Concerto for flute and clarinet, and his Concerto for 15 Soloists and Orchestra - Philip GlassPhilip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
's concerto for saxophone quartet. - Hans Werner HenzeHans Werner HenzeHans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
's double concerto for oboe and harp. - Paul HindemithPaul HindemithPaul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
's concerto for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, harp, and orchestra as well as his concerto for trumpet, bassoon, and strings - Gustav HolstGustav HolstGustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
's Fugal Concerto for flute, oboe and string orchestra - György KurtágGyörgy KurtágGyörgy Kurtág is a Hungarian composer of contemporary music.- Biography :György Kurtág was born in Lugoj in the Banat region, Romania.In 1946, he began his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he met his wife, Márta, and also György Ligeti, who became a close friend...
's double concerto for piano and cello. - Lowell LiebermannLowell LiebermannLowell Liebermann is an American composer, pianist and conductor.At the age of sixteen, Liebermann performed at Carnegie Hall, playing his Piano Sonata, op. 1...
's concerto for flute and harp - György LigetiGyörgy LigetiGyörgy Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
's double concerto for flute and oboe. - Jon LordJon LordJonathan Douglas "Jon" Lord is an English composer, pianist and Hammond organ player.Jon Lord, also known as 'Hammond Lord', is a classically trained piano player. He is recognised for his Hammond organ blues-rock sound and for his pioneering work in fusing rock and classical or baroque forms...
's concerto for rock bandRock BandRock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
. - Witold Lutosławski's concerto for oboe and harp.
- Bohuslav MartinuBohuslav MartinuBohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
's concerto for string quartet, concertino for piano trio and string orchestra, two concertante duos for two violins, concerto for two pianos, sinfonia concertante No. 2 for violin, cello, oboe, bassoon and orchestra with piano, and his concerto for violin and piano. - Olivier MessiaenOlivier MessiaenOlivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
's Concert à quatreConcert à quatreConcert à quatre is one of the final works of the French composer Olivier Messiaen.Written between 1990 and 1991, Messiaen originally intended the piece to have five movements. However, work on another large-scale piece, Éclairs sur l'au-delà…, prevented him from completing it before his death...
for piano, cello, oboe and flute. - Darius MilhaudDarius MilhaudDarius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
's Symphonie concertante for bassoon, horn, trumpet and double bass, as well as his concerti for flute and violin, and for marimba and vibraphone. - Francis PoulencFrancis PoulencFrancis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
's concerto for two pianos. - Joaquín RodrigoJoaquín RodrigoJoaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
's Concierto madrigal for 2 guitars and Concierto Andaluz for 4 guitars. - William RussoWilliam RussoWilliam Russo may refer to:*William Daddano, Sr., aka William Russo*William Russo...
's concerto for bluesBluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
band. - Alfred SchnittkeAlfred SchnittkeAlfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...
's double concerto for oboe, harp, and strings as well as his Konzert zu Dritt, for violin, viola, violoncello and strings. - Rodion ShchedrinRodion ShchedrinRodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin is a Russian composer. He was one оf the leading Soviet composers, and was the chairman of the Union of Russian Composers from 1973 until 1990.-Life and Works:...
's double concerto for piano and cello. - Michael TippettMichael TippettSir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
's triple concerto for violin, viola, and cello.
In the 21st century:
- Leo BrouwerLeo BrouwerJuan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor and guitarist. He is the grandson of Cuban composer Ernestina Lecuona Casado.-Biography:...
's Guitar Concerto No. 10 "Book of Signs", for two guitars - Mohammed FairouzMohammed FairouzMohammed Fairouz is an Arab American composer.Having fulfilling many commissions and created a substantial body of frequently performed works, he is considered one of the most sought after composers of the young generation. Fairouz began composing at an early age and studied at the New England...
's Double Concerto 'States of Fantasy' for violin and cello - William P. PerryWilliam P. PerryWilliam P. Perry is an American composer and television producer.-Life and career:Born in Elmira, New York in 1930, he attended Harvard University and studied with Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston, and Randall Thompson...
's Gemini Concerto for violin and piano - Karl JenkinsKarl Jenkins-Other works:*Adiemus: Live — live versions of Adiemus music*Palladio *Eloise *Imagined Oceans *The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace...
' Over the Stone for two harps
See also
- Bass oboe concertoBass oboe concertoThe bass oboe, a relative of the oboe having the same note compass as the latter, is able to play any work written for oboe - it will, however, sound an octave lower. In addition a very small number of concertos have been written for the bass oboe and for a related instrument with the same range,...
- Bassoon concertoBassoon concertoA bassoon concerto is a concerto for bassoon accompanied by a musical ensemble, typically orchestra. Like bassoon sonatas, bassoon concerti were relatively uncommon until the twentieth century, although there are quite a few bassoon concerti from the Classical period...
- Clarinet concertoClarinet concertoA clarinet concerto is a piece for clarinet and orchestra . Albert Rice has identified a work by Giuseppe Antonio Paganelli as possibly the earliest known concerto for solo clarinet; its score appears to be titled "Concerto per Clareto" and may date from 1733. It may, however, be intended for...
- The Carnival of the AnimalsThe Carnival of the AnimalsLe carnaval des animaux is a musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The orchestral work has a duration between 22 and 30 minutes.-History:...
- Double bass concertoDouble bass concertoA double bass concerto is a piece of music for solo double bass with an orchestra. The first concerti for solo bass were written in the late classical period by Domenico Dragonetti and Johannes Matthias Sperger. Several concerti were also written by Johann Baptist Vanhal, Carl Ditters von...
- English horn concertoEnglish horn concertoA number of concertos and concertante works have been written for cor anglais and string, wind, chamber, or full orchestra.English-horn concertos appeared about a century later than oboe solo pieces, mostly because until halfway through the 18th century different instruments had the role of the...
- Flute concertoFlute concertoA flute concerto is a concerto for solo flute and instrumental ensemble, customarily the orchestra. Such works have been written from the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up through the present day...
- Harmonica concertoHarmonica concertoSince the 1940s, a number of concertos have been written for the harmonica, both as a solo instrument as well as in conjunction with other solo instrument, and accompanied by string orchestra, chamber orchestra, full orchestra, band, or similar large ensemble...
- Harpsichord concertoHarpsichord concertoA harpsichord concerto is a piece of music for an orchestra with the harpsichord in a solo role Sometimes these works are played on the modern piano; see piano concerto...
- Mandolin ConcertoMandolin ConcertoThe Mandolin Concerto in C major, RV 425, which may also be written Mandoline Concerto, is a concerto written by the Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi in 1725 and is often accompanied by The Four Seasons . The music consists of virtuosic treatment of the solo instrument , and the interplay between...
- Oboe concertoOboe concertoA number of concertos have been written for the oboe, both as a solo instrument as well as in conjunction with other solo instrument, and accompanied by string orchestra, chamber orchestra, full orchestra, band, or similar large ensemble.These include concertos by the following...
- Organ concertoOrgan concertoAn organ concerto is a piece of music, an instrumental concerto for a pipe organ soloist with an orchestra. The form first evolves in the 18th century, when composers including George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach wrote organ concertos with small orchestras, and with...
- Piano concertoPiano concertoA piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...
- Timpani ConcertoTimpani ConcertoA timpani concerto is piece of music written for timpani with orchestral accompaniment. It is usually in three parts or movements.The first timpani concertos were written in the Baroque and Classical periods of music. Important concertos from these eras include Johann Fischer's Symphony for Eight...
- Viola concertoViola concertoThe viola concerto is a concerto contrasting a viola with another body of musical instruments, usually an orchestra or chamber music ensemble. Early examples of the viola concerto include, among others, Georg Philipp Telemann's concerto in G major, and several concertos by the Stamitz clan...
- Violin concertoViolin concertoA violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin and instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra. Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up through the present day...
- Cello concerto
- Concerto for OrchestraConcerto for OrchestraAlthough a concerto is usually a piece of music for one or more solo instruments accompanied by a full orchestra, several composers have written works with the apparently contradictory title Concerto for Orchestra...
- ConcertinoConcertino (composition)A concertino is a short concerto freer in form. It normally takes the form of a one-movement musical composition for solo instrument and orchestra, though some concertinos are written in several movements played without a pause....
- Chorale concertoChorale concertoIn music, a chorale concerto is a short sacred composition for one or more voices and instruments, principally from the very early German Baroque era...
- Concerto grossoConcerto grossoThe concerto grosso is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists and full orchestra...
- Double concerto for violin and celloDouble Concerto for Violin and CelloThis is a list of musical compositions for violin, cello and orchestra, ordered by surname of composerPlease see the related entries for concerto, cello and cello concerto for discussion of typical forms and topics....