Composed in 1938 and revised in 1945, Britten was the soloist at the premiere of this bravura concerto at the Proms in 1938.
Unlike most concerti, it’s in four movements – a Toccata, with a considerable cadenza, followed by a Waltz (in place of a Minuet or Scherzo as you might see in a four-movement symphony), an Impromptu (as a slow movement), and then a March as the finale, with use of the whip-crack!
Question: how does this piano concerto compare with others you might know – perhaps the Beethoven or Chopin from last week, or Grieg, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov etc?
In addition, to follow up last week’s Richard Rodney Bennett’s Aviary, we had a suggestion of the following by Madeline Dring as a counterpart .
She was born just a little over 100 years ago, joined the junior department of the Royal College, and then studied with Herbert Howells and Ralph Vaughan Williams. She adored the music of Rachmaninov and Poulenc, enjoying jazzy rhythms of Cole Porter and George Gershwin, and music of the Caribbean.
A popular name on singing lists for graded exams, she has otherwise sadly been neglected, with music for ballet, television, opera, and acres of vocal and chamber music ready for the eager explorer.
Listening Project 