The piano concerto: A contested space between the sovereign soloist and the collective orchestra

“ A concerto is a sonata for a solo instrument with orchestral accompaniment, the form being usually somewhat modified so as to adapt it to a composition in which there must [Pg 73] necessarily be opportunity for a good deal of technical display. There are usually but three movements in the concerto.
The great majority of concertos are for piano and orchestra, but examples of concertos for violin, cello, flute, oboe, and other solo instruments (all with orchestral accompaniment) have also been written. ”

“ When a concerto is played on two pianos (without orchestra) , this does not mean that there is no orchestral part, but that there is no orchestra to play it, and so the parts that should be played by the orchestral instruments have simply been arranged for a second piano (sometimes organ) .
156. A symphony is a sonata for full orchestra. In general its construction is the same as that of the sonata, but it is usually of much larger proportions and has in it much greater variety of both tonal and rhythmic material. ”

“ The style of a concerto must be, at the same time, serious in thoughts and in their developments, graceful and brilliant, in order to bring forth the talent of execution of the virtuoso. Here is a double reef to avoid, and here many artists have been wrecked. Vieuxtemps and Leonard are the modern masters who have been the most successful in this difficult style ”

“ Thus it is that Mozart has given much, and much of its special character, to the clavier. This equilibrium—and Mozart is always the very personification of equilibrium—is most striking in his piano-concertos, which justly enjoy the renown of having created an epoch in this class. Especially remarkable is the C minor concerto, in which the piano experienced one of its chief emancipations. On one side stood the orchestra, on the other the instrument, and yet neither of these two great rivals loses anything of its essential nature; rather, they owe to this very rivalry many of their best effects. ”

“ The treatment of the solo instrument is more consistently pianistic, adds more in special color, therefore, to the beauty of the whole. The slow movement fulfills an ideal of the concerto which up to that time and even later has been almost ignored. It is a dialogue, a dramatic conversation between the orchestra and the piano, the one seeming to typify some dark power of fate, the other man. Its beauty is matchless. It is worthy of remark that both the G major and the E-flat major concertos begin with passages for the solo instrument. ”

“ Its strings have vibrated under my passions, and its yielding keys have obeyed my every caprice. Perhaps the secret tie which holds me so closely to it is a delusion; but I hold the piano very high. In my view it takes the first place in the hierarchy of instruments; [Pg 282] it is the oftenest used and the widest spread.... In the circumference of its seven octaves it embraces the whole circumference of an orchestra; and a man’s ten fingers are enough to render the harmonies which in an orchestra are only brought out by the combination of hundreds of musicians.... ”

“ Instruments Played with the Bow The modern orchestra is a musical instrument upon which a performer, known as a conductor, plays compositions written especially for it. It is true that an orchestra is a collection of instruments, but these are intended to be so distributed and operated that the result shall be homogeneous, the effect that of one grand organ of sound. ”

“ But Brahms thought differently from the critic and public; to him a piano concerto was the sonata form amplified, and the piano, unless it had something to say, must hold its tongue between its burnished ivory teeth. Do not, however, imagine that the pianist has a few doleful chords to play. There are difficulties enough, and of a trying and unusual order. As for the seriousness of the work we cannot deny that it is dark at times, especially in the orchestra, and full of the strenuous, solid sincerity of the composer. ”

“ The piano, to be sure, is a more representative instrument, enabling one pair of hands to grasp the whole harmony of a composition, or a compendium thereof; but the violin, with the other members of its family, viola, 'cello,64 &c., is the more social instrument, bringing together groups of kindred spirits who can play in parts, and read together the quartets, &c., of the greatest masters, or play sonata duos, trios, &c., with the piano-forte. And the string-instruments are infinitely the most expressive: their tones lie nearer to the soul, spring more directly from the human breast. ”

“ In households where there is no piano we seem to breathe a foreign atmosphere. To-day we need no longer explain the piano from the church or the theatre, from the ballet or the volkslied, from the artistic song or the violin; it has on the contrary become an active centre, which has given its form to our whole musical culture; nay, more, which has even given the stamp to our whole conception of music, not only in the minds of all amateurs, but in the minds of many professionals. ”

“ The artist who brings life itself, gently transfigured by literary art, into musical emotion, never before or since became so clear a personality. The piano has advanced into the midst of a life-culture. A thousand threads run from all sides into this intimate web in which the whole lyrical devotion of a musical soul is interwoven. The piano is the orchestra of the heart. The joys and sorrows which are expressed in these pieces were never put into form with more sovereign power. For the external form Bach gave the impulse ”

“ Music is to him a speech, because it is full of associations of ideas, which bring tones into relation with the outer world, and make them reverberate with a thousand inner meanings. In his orchestra we hear nature, as in his pianoforte we hear the orchestra. [Pg 168] Not without reason has Bülow, in his edition of Beethoven, in more than one place translated the piano-piece for the reader into score, in order to make its content clearer. These are things which did not exist in Bach. ”

“ All beautiful compositions notwithstanding, the piano is no concerto-instrument. In concertos the delicate ear is outraged. The piano will not adapt itself for new ideas in the hall, in the midst of virtuosity, or against the orchestra. It must become chaste; it must turn in faith to Bach’s Wohltemperiertes Klavier, the Old Testament, as Bülow called it, of the musician’s creed, and to Beethoven’s Sonatas, the New. ”

“ As we find in Bach the possibilities of all the great forms of the succeeding centuries, so we find in him also all the germs of future expression, rhythm, harmony, and melody. Nothing is more perverse than to regard this music as academic and expressionless. Expression is never absent from counterpoint except when it sacrifices impressionism to the mere display of technical mastery. We shall even to-day seek in vain for piano compositions more full of expression than some of the preludes contained in the Wohltemperiertes Klavier. ”

“ The life of the great virtuosos is a reflection of the unrest inseparable from their calling. It is indeed no longer a life of adventure, as with Marchand and Froberger; there is method in the madness. The life of the executant, no less than the execution, has found its form. The concert-campaigns are the foundation; the warrior returns to his home at greater and greater intervals; until at last, when delight in recitals has waned along with the pliancy of the fingers, some resting-place or other is found—a share in a piano-manufactory or a steady round of instruction. ”

“ The clavier was again the opponent of the orchestra, and concentrated the whole body of tone in its keys. An intimate, personal interpreter of musical emotions, it chooses to perform its functions in itself. Its consciousness of its own importance grows to a height. No longer will a clavecin-player when accompanist be the Cinderella among a company of proud sisters. “The clavierist,” cried Couperin indignantly, “is the last to be praised for his share in a concerto. What injustice! His accompaniment is the foundation of a building which supports the whole, and of which no one ever speaks!” ”

“ The highest popular conception of a classical concert is one in which a complete orchestra performs symphonies and extended compositions in allied [Pg 123] forms, such as overtures, symphonic poems, and concertos. Change the composition of the instrumental body, by omitting the strings and augmenting the reed and brass choirs, and you have a military band which is best employed in the open air, and whose programmes are generally made up of compositions in the simpler and more easily comprehended forms—dances, marches, fantasias on popular airs, arrangements of operatic excerpts and the like. ”

“ The Orchestra is a corporate body that is ruled by the Conductor. His is the power that holds all these forces together; he it is who guides these ninety men through the mazes of the vast musical composition, or fabric of woven melodies and harmonies, the patterns and colors of which he will place before our auditory nerves, which will carry to and impress upon our brains the musical forms and figures that also charm our senses; and to do this the Conductor must understand the technique of his Orchestra every bit as thoroughly as each man knows the technique of his instrument. ”

“ All the dialogue, crisp and sparkling, full of humor in itself, is made crisper, more sparkling, more amusing by the music on which, and in which, it floats, we are almost tempted to say more buoyantly than comedy dialogue has floated since Mozart wrote "Le Nozze di Figaro." The orchestra is bearer of everything, just as completely as it is in the latter-day dramas of Richard Wagner; it supplies phrases for the singers, supports their voices, comments on their utterances, and gives dramatic color to even the most fleeting idea. ”

“ The orchestra is always an explicator, never a mere support. And here and there we meet with passages of merely descriptive or scenic music, in which not even guiding themes of scenic nature are used. The ultimate purpose of the entire musical scheme is organic union with the text so that the music shall give perfect expression to the drama of emotions which is being enacted, and place the hearer in the proper moods for the reception of it. While all the old musical forms employed in opera are abandoned, Wagner avoids formlessness by the repetition of identified themes. ”

“ No emotion is so simple as to be capable of a single decided and comprehensive expression. To the voices is intrusted the task of depicting the main features, while the orchestra undertakes to express the secondary and even 'the contradictory impulses of the mind, from the conflict of which arise emotions capable of being expressed in music alone of all the arts. ”

“ In accompanying the voice the composer should bear these points in mind before turning his attention to the choice of orchestral colour. A confused, heavy accompaniment will overpower the singer; an accompaniment which is too simple in character will lack interest, and one which is too weak will not sustain the voice sufficiently.
In modern opera it is rare that orchestral writing is confined to accompaniment pure and simple. It frequently happens that the principal musical idea, often complex in character, is contained in the orchestra. ”

“ Yet they figured frequently in my popular programmes thirty years ago, and both operas deserve more than a passing recognition. The first was a stroke of genius in which the commonplace Auber rose to real heights. The heroine is a dumb girl, a prima donna without a voice, but very dramatically portrayed in the orchestra, and the atmosphere of a people fighting for freedom pervades the entire story. “Fra Diavolo” is a delightful comic opera. The only trouble is that the music is too good for the abjectly dull audiences that now frequent our theatres and want to see a “musical show.” ”

“ Though in the cembalo there sounded in his ear something of the accustomed solemnity of the organ, there is yet in his music a cry for a subtle and expressive instrument which he as little possessed as Beethoven possessed an orchestra suited to his ideas. In every great tone-creator lives a superabundance of imaginative form which the instruments of the time cannot embody, and to which the instruments instantly strive to become equal. Because Berlioz was, the modern orchestra is. Because Bach was, the pianoforte is, which knows how to express with justice the subtleties of his soul-music. ”

“ The Allegro tranquillo is smooth, even smug, and one entire phrase for the woodwind occurs in the working-out section of the first movement of Rubinstein’s D minor piano concerto. The adagio is well made but is not musically convincing, notwithstanding its dark, rustling introduction, and the pretty conversation between oboe and flute. When the ’celli take up the solo one feels as if something were being accomplished. The scherzo is a melancholy apology and the trio cheap. In the finale, noisy and barbaric, we get a taste of our Tschaïkowsky, despite the garishness of loosely built fabric. ”

“ Certain moments may require great volume of orchestral tone, so great that a voice of even phenomenal power is incapable of being heard. Even if the singer is audible, such unequal struggles between voice and orchestra are most inartistic, and the composer should reserve his orchestral outbursts for the intervals during which the voice is silent, distributing the singer's phrases and pauses in a free and natural manner, according to the sense of the words. If a prolonged forte passage occurs in the orchestra it may be used concurrently with action on the stage. ”

“ I had placed an additional oboe with every three violins and an additional bassoon for every three violoncellos, with a few contrabassoons and contrabass clarinets to strengthen the double-basses and to take the part of the serpent—an instrument which has become obsolete. The doubling up of trumpets and kettledrums in the climaxes did not make them sound louder, but more full. For the first time in my experience the sound of the orchestra was not completely buried in the avalanche of tone from a large chorus of three hundred and fifty voices. ”

“ There is really no need for this incessant piling-up of more and more sound in the orchestra; its one sufficient condemnation is that frequently no result comes out commensurate with the huge means that have to be employed. Thousands of pages of our modern music would be equally great, equally moving, with a vastly smaller expenditure of effort. A man like Strauss takes an exuberant joy, the joy of a healthy athlete doing difficult feats, in weaving a musical texture that is a marvel of ingenious technique. ”

“ In fact I think that much of the applause which usually follows a great pianist’s playing of a concerto is due not so much to the audience’s enthusiasm over it as to the hope that he may be induced to come out and play something alone. So far as the symphony is concerned, it is liberating itself more and more from the sonata form and taking the direction indicated by Liszt in his symphonic poems and by Richard Strauss in his tone poems, the freest form of orchestral composition yet conceived. ”

“ Up to the present time all the best-known French pianists—with the exception of Saint-Saens—have not ventured to play anything of mine except transcriptions, my own compositions being necessarily considered absurd and insupportable. People know pretty well what to think by what they hear said, without any need of hearing the works.
How did the orchestra go with the piano in the Concerto? Had they taken care to have enough rehearsals? There are several passages that require minute care; the modulations are abrupt, and the variety of the movements is somewhat disconcerting for the conductor. ”

“ At the rehearsal he must explain his wishes to the men, and play through each movement of a symphony piece-meal before he undertakes to go through it without a stop. A judicious conductor makes no attempt to put a poetic explanation before his orchestra. He works entirely on the technics of the performance, and leaves the temperament and enthusiasm of his men to do the rest. A conductor once went from another city to Boston to conduct an orchestra at the first appearance in this country [Pg 169] of an eminent pianist, whose pièce de resistance was to be Liszt’s E flat concerto. ”

“ Pianists make sad mistakes when they come to write for orchestra, because they try to write in a piano style. They are so accustomed to seeing a melody in the treble clef and all the accompaniment in the bass, that they frequently fail to find any use for their soprano [Pg 116] instruments except the utterance of the melody, while all the barytone and bass instruments grumble a muddy accompaniment, and thus, as musicians say, the orchestra is “all top and bottom.” ”