Piano Concertos, Your favourite... Options

[Gae]

My favourite form of music is probably the Piano Concerto.
Here are my favourite Piano Concertos in no particular order. Sorry if they are a bit predictable..

1)Piano Concerto No.2 and 3 (Rachmaninov)
2)Piano Concerto No.1 in Bbm (Tchaickovsky)
3)Piano Concerto in Am (Grieg)
4)Concerto in F (Gershwin)
5)Piano Concerto in Am (Schumann)
6)Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.1 in Eb (Liszt)
7)Concerto for the Left Hand (Ravel)
8)Piano Concerto No. 1 to 5 (Prokofiev)
9)Piano Concertos No. 1 and 2 (Chopin)
10)Piano Concerto No. 1-5 (Beethoven)

Any other recommendations?

Gae

[AnotherPianist]

You can't have left many out there ;).

Not a fan of Mozart then?! If you listen to Mozart's number 20 you'll probably know it (particularly the middle movement) there are some other real gems in there too. Also there are those who love Brahms's piano concerti too (cue Maggie!). Of the ones that you've mentioned I'm quite a fan of Beethoven's, especially 3 and 4; Chopin's; Grieg's and Tchaikovsky's....

[maggiemay]

Thank you !
Brahms number one.

M

[Gae]

QUOTE

If you listen to Mozart's number 20 you'll probably know it (particularly the middle movement) there are some other real gems in there too

Yes, I'm familiar with the "Elvira Madigan" music. I forgot that. In all honesty, although I hear Mozart's Piano Concertos played a lot of the time, I'm not that familiar with any one in particular. Although beautiful sounding, at the risk of sounding a Philistine, to my ears, one Concerto does tend to sound like another when you dont know them very well. Possibly, Mozart suffers from having written too many Piano Concertos.
Also, my favourite Centuries are the 19th and 20th. Thats just my personal preference. I prefer the more muscular, Romantic, Tragic Piano Concerto over the lighter, more playful kind.

Gae

[davidyko]

Rach 2+3
Tchaichovsky 1
...
*gives up* :rolleyes:

[Fen]

Either of the Brahms - MusicMinusOne rules - but I'm going to have to fork out for one of their funky "slow it down to idiot proof speed" CD players...

[Deborah]

Minor correction - Mozart 20 is the D minor concerto K466 (a fine piece, and my personal favourite, in spite of having part of it as a set work at A Level) The first and second movements were used in Amadeus.

The one used in the film Elvira Madigan is the slow movement of number 21, in C major (K467 for catalogue spotters) - still a fine piece, but not as good as its immediate predecessor.

I can't really dispute any of Gae's choices.

Has anyone else round here actually sat through Elvira Madigan (the film, not the concerto!), or noticed how many piano concertos end up in films (Rach 2 - Brief Encounter (my favourite film!!!); Rach 3 - Shine)

[andante_in_c]

Ravel G major.

[kenm]

Some new ones (I like lots of those already mentioned): Brahms 2nd, John Ireland, Mozart 23 in A (K488), 12 in A (K414: has a gorgeous slow movement in memoriam, and based on a tune by, his friend J C Bach, JSB's youngest son, whom he had met on his London visit in 1764) and (my favourite) 24 in C minor (K491). The last was the inspiration for Beethoven's 3rd, in the same key, and superior to it, IMO, though I like the Beethoven too.

Not exactly a piano concerto, but I love the Rachmaninov "Paganini" Variations.

[Gae]

QUOTE

Not exactly a piano concerto, but I love the Rachmaninov "Paganini" Variations.

Totally agree with you Kenm. Its a wonderful piece. I used to play the 18th variation solo and play along to the strings that I'd sequenced on my keyboard. The times I played along to the strings theme was a wonderful feeling and almost made me feel like I was the soloist in an orchestra. Not as good as the real thing I'm sure, but a second best maybe. Towards the end of the "Rhapsody" there is a staccato/pizzicato motif that plays quietly at first and builds up to a cymbal crash and variation with full orchestra. This is the limit of my playing. In this passage there is a moment where each hand is playing 5 finger diminished chords, each in a different inversions, playing up and down tonaly and chromatically up to speed. After trying to and failing to play this part I realised the true nature of "virtuoso"..or at least "extremely large hands"! :D
I'm just in the processing of "digitizing" my old LP of Delius' Piano Concerto in Cm and Debussy's Fantasie for Piano and Orchestra. Is anyone familiar with these works? I know them a little but want to get to know them more, hence the transfer to computer.
Yes, "Elvira Madigan" is No. 21 sorry. I had a suspicion it wasn't 20 but couldn't be bothered looking through CDs to find out. :)

Gae

[sarah-flute]

My favourite has to be Rach 2, but have to admit I'm not that familiar with the repertoire, so I'm unduly biased to the one I actually know well and have played in the orchestra for!

[Gae]

Sarah, what part did you play in the orchestra? Flute? Is it easy or a difficult part to play?

Gae

[sarah-flute]

2nd violin.

It wasn't too hard as I remember (we are talking 8 years ago though!) though that feeling is slightly suspect as I was playing in an orchestra where probably 75% of the players had already learned and performed the piece the year before, and it's much easier of course to get swept into it and feel how the piece fits together when everyone else knows what they're doing and you just have to go along with it, whereas if the whole orchestra is learning a piece from scratch the feel is entirely different. But generally, yes, a *wonderful* piece to play in, we even got the tune a few times in the tuttis, and I remember it as an entirely enjoyable experience. And even given the fact that the orchestra had played it before... we had two rehearsals, a run through in the hall with the soloist, and then performed it, so it didn't require much in the way of getting back into it from the seasoned members, and I think we gave a pretty good rendition from comments afterwards. This was the top county youth orchestra: standard mostly 7 - 8 in the strings generally, and 8 plus in woodwind, approximately

[DGA]

Tchaikovsky No. 1 is really my favorite!

Beethoven's aren't bad, either.

Well, I wish I could hear a recording of the Rachaminov concertos.

[AnotherPianist]

QUOTE (DGA @ Mar 4 2005, 12:01 PM)

Well, I wish I could hear a recording of the Rachaminov concertos.

I don't know what country you're in and if you can get it there but Naxos have a recording of Rachmaninoff playing Rachmaninoff (and it's only £4.99, although you only get two of the concerti for that). It's actually quite enlightening to listen to it he plays his pieces in a far more Chopinesque manner than most concert pianists do today. It's worth listening to if you're playing any Rachmaninoff (not that I have played any...) just to see how his own playing of his works differs from more modern interpretations of them.