Piano Concerto (Tippett)

rdf:langString Piano Concerto (Tippett)

rdf:langString British composer Michael Tippett composed his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra between 1953 and 1955 on a commission from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The overall character of the work was influenced by the composer's hearing German pianist Walter Gieseking rehearse Ludwig van Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto in 1950. Its musical content, while influenced by this concerto, was also shaped largely by Tippett's opera The Midsummer Marriage, which he had completed in 1952. While Tippett had conceived the work initially in the mid-1940s, he had been preoccupied in much of the intervening time with The Midsummer Marriage. The Piano Concerto was the result of one of Tippett's most complex creative cycles. The events that initiated the cycle contributed to its conceptual dimensions and date back to January 1950 when he was deep into the compositional process for The Midsummer Marriage. Echoes of the opera resonate throughout Concerto while two other previous compositions: the Fantasia on a Theme of Handel (1939–41) and the First Symphony (1944-5) figure prominently in the creative cycle as well. The Concerto was originally intended for Noel Mewton-Wood, who had assisted Tippett in playing back portions of the piano reduction of The Midsummer Marriage that were meticulously prepared by Michael Tillett, but Mewton-Wood took his own life on 5 December 1953. Further controversy over the concerto erupted when the soloist, Julius Katchen, declared the work unplayable and walked out shortly before its premiere in 1956. Katchen was replaced by Louis Kentner. With its emphasis on lyricism and poetry rather than high drama and virtuosic display, the Tippett piano concerto has been seen by British composer David Matthews as both commentary on and reaction against the percussive and heroic aspects that had predominated concerto writing in the decades preceding it. This approach was fully in keeping with the composer's stated disdain for what he considered a confrontational rather than collaborative approach to the genre. The work shows Tippett's predilection for incorporating innovative elements within a traditional formal structure. It follows the example of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto in having an expansive opening movement followed by two relatively brief ones. The harmonic basis for much of the piece, however, is built on musical fourths rather than thirds. These chords are treated as consonant, primary harmonies instead of their previously traditional role as dissonances that required resolution. This harmonic base supports a florid lyricism not far removed from The Midsummer Marriage.