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49-504: A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin (occasionally, two or more violins) 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. Many major composers have contributed to the violin concerto repertoire. Traditionally a three-movement work, the violin concerto has been structured in four movements by

98-415: A Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra , and Exsultate, jubilate , a de facto concerto for soprano voice. They all exploit and explore the characteristics of the solo instrument(s). Haydn wrote an important trumpet concerto and a Sinfonia Concertante for violin, cello, oboe and bassoon as well as two horn concertos. Haydn also wrote a concerto for double bass but has since been lost to history in

147-579: A cello or a woodwind instrument , and concerti grossi for a group of soloists. The first keyboard concertos , such as George Frideric Handel 's organ concertos and Johann Sebastian Bach 's harpsichord concertos , were written around the same time. In the second half of the 18th century, the piano became the most used keyboard instrument , and composers of the Classical Era such as Joseph Haydn , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven each wrote several piano concertos , and, to

196-581: 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 that 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

245-422: A child, made arrangements for keyboard and orchestra of four sonatas by now little-known composers. Then he arranged 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

294-447: A concerto for a rock band . Concertos from previous ages have remained a conspicuous part of the repertoire for concert performances and recordings. Less common has been the previously common practice of the composition of concertos by a performer to be performed personally, though the practice has continued via certain composer-performers such as Daniil Trifonov . The Italian word concerto , meaning accord or gathering, derives from

343-484: A concerto for wordless coloratura soprano by Reinhold Glière . As a result, almost all classical instruments now have a concertante repertoire. Among the works of the prolific composer Alan Hovhaness may be noted Prayer of St. Gregory for trumpet and strings, though it is not a concerto in the usual sense of the term. In the later 20th century the concerto tradition was continued by composers such as Maxwell Davies , whose series of Strathclyde Concertos exploit some of

392-509: A full concerto, though the distinction has never been formalised and many Concertinos are still longer than the original Baroque concertos. During the Romantic era the cello became increasingly used as a concerto instrument; though the violin and piano remained the most frequently used. Beethoven contributed to the repertoire of concertos for more than one soloist with a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello and orchestra while later in

441-482: A lesser extent, violin concertos, and concertos for other instruments. In the Romantic Era , many composers, including Niccolò Paganini , Felix Mendelssohn , Frédéric Chopin , Robert Schumann , Johannes Brahms , Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff , continued to write solo concertos, and, more exceptionally, concertos for more than one instrument; 19th century concertos for instruments other than

490-668: A neoclassical rejection of specific features which typically characterized the concerto form during the Baroque or Romantic periods. Several of them achieved this objective by incorporating various musical elements from the realm of jazz within the structure of the concerto. Included in this group were: Aaron Copland ( Concerto for Piano , 1926), Maurice Ravel ( Concerto for the Left Hand , 1929), Igor Stravinsky ( Ebony Concerto for clarinet and jazz band, 1945) and George Gershwin ( Concerto in F , 1925). Still others called upon

539-634: A number of modern composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich , Igor Stravinsky , and Alban Berg . In some violin concertos, especially from the Baroque and modern eras, the violin (or group of violins) is accompanied by a chamber ensemble rather than an orchestra—for instance, in Vivaldi's L'estro armonico , originally scored for four violins, two violas, cello, and continuo , and in Allan Pettersson 's first concerto, for violin and string quartet. The following concertos are presently found near

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588-509: Is linked by the twelve-tone serial method. 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. 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, and even

637-403: Is the late works that will ultimately be the most influential parts of Schnittke's output. After a stroke in 1994 left him almost completely paralysed, Schnittke largely ceased to compose. He did complete some short works in 1997 and also a Ninth Symphony ; its score was almost unreadable because he had written it with great difficulty with his left hand due to his strokes. The Ninth Symphony

686-514: The Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola, and orchestra. Beethoven wrote only one violin concerto that remained obscure until revealed as a masterpiece in a performance by violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim on 27 May 1844. C.P.E. Bach's keyboard concertos contain some virtuosic solo writing. Some of them have movements that run into one another without a break, and there are frequent cross-movement thematic references. Mozart, as

735-411: The double bass (by composers like Eduard Tubin or Peter Maxwell Davies ) and cor anglais (like those by MacMillan and Aaron Jay Kernis ), but also folk instruments (such as Tubin's concerto for Balalaika , Serry 's Concerto in C Major for Bassetti Accordion , or the concertos for Harmonica by Villa-Lobos and Malcolm Arnold ), and even Deep Purple 's Concerto for Group and Orchestra ,

784-833: The ripieno , functioning as a continuo keyboard accompaniment. Later, the concerto approached its modern form, in which the concertino usually reduces to a single solo instrument playing with (or against) an orchestra. The main composers of concertos of the baroque were Tommaso Albinoni , Antonio Vivaldi (e.g., published in L'estro armonico , La stravaganza , Six Violin Concertos, Op. 6 , Twelve Concertos, Op. 7 , Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione , Six Flute Concertos, Op. 10 , Six Concertos, Op. 11 and Six Violin Concertos, Op. 12 ), Georg Philipp Telemann , Johann Sebastian Bach , George Frideric Handel , Pietro Locatelli , Jean-Marie Leclair , Giuseppe Tartini , Francesco Geminiani and Johann Joachim Quantz . The concerto

833-478: The serial technique in works such as Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1964). However, Schnittke soon became dissatisfied with what he termed the "puberty rites of serial self-denial." He created a new style which has been called " polystylism ", where he juxtaposed and combined music of various styles past and present. He once wrote, "The goal of my life is to unify serious music and light music, even if I break my neck in doing so." His first concert work to use

882-452: The 19th century such as the clarinet , viola and French horn . In the second half of the 20th century and onwards into the 21st a great many composers have continued to write concertos, including Alfred Schnittke , György Ligeti , Dimitri Shostakovich , Philip Glass and James MacMillan among many others. An interesting feature of this period is the proliferation of concerti for less usual instruments, including orchestral ones such as

931-460: 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 . The concertos of the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach , such as C. P. E. Bach , are perhaps the best links between those of the Baroque period and those of the Classical era. It is conventional to state that

980-836: The Concerto for Mixed Chorus (1984–1985) and the Penitential Psalms (1988), and alluded to in various others works, including the Fourth Symphony and the Faust Cantata. As his health deteriorated from the late 1980s, Schnittke started to abandon much of the extroversion of his earlier polystylism and retreated into a more withdrawn, bleak style, quite accessible to the lay listener. The Fourth Quartet (1989) and Sixth (1992), Seventh (1993) and Eighth (1994) symphonies are good examples of this. Some Schnittke scholars, such as Gerard McBurney , have argued that it

1029-512: The Latin verb concertare , which indicates a competition or battle. Compositions were for the first time indicated as concertos in the title of a music print when the Concerti by Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli  [ scores ] were published in 1587. In the 17th century, sacred works for voices and orchestra were typically called concertos, as reflected by J. S. Bach 's usage of

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1078-744: The Soviet Union and settled in Hamburg , Germany. His health remained poor, however. He suffered several more strokes before his death on 3 August 1998, in Hamburg, at the age of 63. He was buried, with state honors, at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich , but after the visit of the Italian composer Luigi Nono to the USSR, he took up

1127-509: The Soviet bureaucracy. His First Symphony was effectively banned by the Composers' Union . After he abstained from a Composers' Union vote in 1980, he was banned from travelling outside the USSR. On 21 July 1985, Schnittke suffered a stroke that left him in a coma . He was declared clinically dead on several occasions, but recovered and continued to compose. In 1990, Schnittke left

1176-714: The ballet Peer Gynt (1985–1987); the Third (1981), Fourth (1984) and Fifth (1988) Symphonies (the last of which is also known as the Fourth Concerto Grosso), the Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (1979) and the Viola (1985) and First Cello (1985–1986) Concertos. This period was also marked by a turn in Schnittke and his music to Christian themes, exemplified in his deeply spiritual unaccompanied choral works,

1225-488: The center of the mainstream Western repertoire. Concerto The concerto originated as a genre of vocal music in the late 16th century: the instrumental variant appeared around a century later, when Italians such as Giuseppe Torelli and Arcangelo Corelli started to publish their concertos. A few decades later, Venetian composers, such as Antonio Vivaldi , had written hundreds of violin concertos , while also producing solo concertos for other instruments such as

1274-464: The century, Brahms wrote a Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra. Many of the concertos written in the early 20th century belong more to the late Romantic school, hence modernistic movement. Masterpieces were written by Edward Elgar (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,

1323-692: 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 that included new and extended instrumental techniques and a focus on previously neglected aspects of sound such as pitch , timbre and dynamics . In some cases, they also brought about a new approach to the role of soloists and their relation to the orchestra. Two great innovators of early 20th-century music, Schoenberg and Stravinsky , both wrote violin concertos. The material in Schoenberg's concerto, like that in Berg's ,

1372-560: The epic Symphony No. 1 (1969–1972) and his first concerto grosso (1977). In the 1980s, Schnittke's music began to become more widely known abroad with the publication of his second (1980) and third (1983) string quartets and the String Trio (1985); the ballet Peer Gynt (1985–1987); the third (1981), fourth (1984), and fifth (1988) symphonies; and the viola concerto (1985) and first cello concerto (1985–1986). As his health deteriorated, Schnittke's music started to abandon much of

1421-660: The extroversion of his polystylism and retreated into a more withdrawn, bleak style. Schnittke's father, Harry Maximilian Schnittke  [ ru ] (1914–1975), was Jewish and born in Frankfurt . He moved to the Soviet Union in 1927 and worked as a journalist and translator from the Russian language into German. His mother, Maria Iosifovna Schnittke (née Vogel, 1910–1972), was a Volga German born in Russia. Schnittke's paternal grandmother, Tea Abramovna Katz (1889–1970),

1470-480: The first movements of concertos from the Classical period onwards follow the structure of sonata form . Final movements are often in rondo form, as in J.S. Bach's E Major Violin Concerto . Mozart wrote five violin concertos, all in 1775. They show a number of influences, notably Italian and Austrian . Several passages have leanings towards folk music , as manifested in Austrian serenades . Mozart also wrote

1519-569: The great fire of Esterhaza in 1779. In the 19th century, the concerto as a vehicle for virtuosic display flourished, and concertos became increasingly complex and ambitious works. Whilst performances of typical concertos in the baroque era lasted about ten minutes, those by Beethoven could last half an hour or longer. The term concertino (composition) , or the German Konzertstuck ("Concert Piece") began to be used to designate smaller pieces not considered large enough to be considered

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1568-846: The instruments less familiar as soloists. In addition, the 20th century gave rise to several composers who experimented further by showcasing a variety of nontraditional orchestral instruments within the center of the orthodox concerto form. Included within this group are: Paul Hindemith ( Concerto for Trautonium and String Orchestra in 1931), Andre Jolivet ( Concerto of Ondes Martenot in 1947), Heitor Villa-Lobos ( Concerto for Harmonica in 1956), John Serry Sr. ( Concerto in C Major for Bassetti Accordion in 1966), Astor Piazzolla ( Concerto for Bandoneon , String Orchestra and Percussion , "Aconcagua" in 1979), Peter Maxwell Davies ( Concerto for Piccolo and Orchestra, Op. 182 in 1996), and Tan Dun ( Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra in 1998) Other composers of this era adopted

1617-430: The material. Of his 27 piano concertos , the last 22 are highly appreciated. A dozen cataloged keyboard concertos are attributed to Haydn, of which only three or four are considered genuine. C. P. E. Bach wrote five flute concertos and two oboe concertos. Mozart wrote five horn concertos, with two for flute, oboe (later rearranged for flute and known as Flute Concerto No. 2), clarinet , and bassoon , four for horn ,

1666-511: The orchestra itself to function as the primary virtuosic force within the concerto form. This approach was adopted by Bela Bartok in his Concerto for Orchestra as well by other composers of the period including: Walter Piston (1933), Zoltan Kodaly (1939), Michael Tippet (1962) and Elliott Carter (1969). Concertos with concert band include: 20th century: Baroque era: 20th century: Baroque era: 20th century: Baroque era: Classical era: Early Romantic traits can be found in

1715-487: The past which is still alive." "I felt every moment there," the composer wrote, "to be a link of the historical chain: all was multi-dimensional; the past represented a world of ever-present ghosts, and I was not a barbarian without any connections, but the conscious bearer of the task in my life." Schnittke's experience in Vienna "gave him a certain spiritual experience and discipline for his future professional activities. It

1764-490: The piano, violin and cello remained comparatively rare however. In the first half of the 20th century, concertos were written by, among others, Maurice Ravel , Edward Elgar , Richard Strauss , Sergei Prokofiev , George Gershwin , Heitor Villa-Lobos , Joaquín Rodrigo and Béla Bartók , the latter also composing a concerto for orchestra , that is without soloist. During the 20th century concertos appeared by major composers for orchestral instruments which had been neglected in

1813-404: The polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony (1969–1972) and First Concerto Grosso (1977). Other works were more stylistically unified, such as his Piano Quintet (1972–1976, later orchestrated and retitled as In Memoriam… ), written in memory of his mother, who had died in 1972. In the 1980s, Schnittke's music began to become more widely known abroad, thanks in part to

1862-420: The polystylistic technique was the second violin sonata , Quasi una sonata (1967–1968). He experimented with techniques in his film work, as shown by much of the sonata appearing first in his score for the 1968 animation short The Glass Harmonica . He wrote the music for Aleksandr Askoldov 's Commissar , combining and juxtaposing European, ethnic Russian and Jewish musical patterns. He continued to develop

1911-516: The title "concerto" for many of the works that we know as cantatas . The term "concerto" was initially used to denote works that involved voices and instruments in which the instruments had independent parts—as opposed to the Renaissance common practice in which instruments that accompanied voices only doubled the voice parts. Examples of this earlier form of concerto include Giovanni Gabrieli 's "In Ecclesiis" or Heinrich Schütz 's "Saul, Saul,

1960-750: 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. 20th century: 21st century: Baroque era: Classical era: 20th century: The 'core' repertoire—performed the most of any cello concertos—are by Elgar , Dvořák , Saint-Saëns, Haydn, Shostakovich and Schumann, but many more concertos are performed nearly as often. Baroque era: Classical era: Romantic era: 20th century: 20th century: 20th century: Baroque era: Classical era: Romantic era: 20th century: Baroque era: Alfred Schnittke Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (24 November 1934 – 3 August 1998)

2009-404: 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 and neotonality , the wider acceptance of dissonances , the invention of the twelve-tone technique of composition and the use of polyrhythms and complex time signatures . These changes also affected

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2058-597: The work of émigré Soviet artists such as the violinists Gidon Kremer and Mark Lubotsky , the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich , but also by the conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky . Despite constant illness, he produced a large amount of music, including important works such as the Second (1980) and Third (1983) String Quartets and the String Trio (1985); the Faust Cantata (1983), which he later incorporated in his opera Historia von D. Johann Fausten ;

2107-472: Was Mozart and Schubert , not Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff , whom he kept in mind as a reference point in terms of taste, manner and style. This reference point was essentially Classical ... but never too blatant." In 1948, the family moved to Moscow. In 1961 Schnittke completed his graduate work in composition at the Moscow Conservatory and taught there from 1962 to 1972. Evgeny Golubev

2156-591: Was a philologist , translator, and editor of German-language literature. Alfred Schnittke was born in Engels in the Volga German ASSR of the Russian SFSR . He began his musical education in 1946 in Vienna, where his father had been posted. It was in Vienna, Schnittke's biographer Alexander Ivashkin writes, where "he fell in love with music which is part of life, part of history and culture, part of

2205-439: Was a Russian composer . Among the most performed and recorded composers of late 20th-century classical music , he is described by musicologist Ivan Moody as a "composer who was concerned in his music to depict the moral and spiritual struggles of contemporary man in [...] depth and detail." Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich . He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as

2254-436: Was first performed on 19 June 1998 in Moscow in a version deciphered – but also 'arranged' – by Gennady Rozhdestvensky , who conducted the premiere. After hearing a tape of the performance, Schnittke indicated he wanted it withdrawn. After he died, though, others worked to decipher the score. Nikolai Korndorf died before he could complete the task, which was continued and completed by Alexander Raskatov . In Raskatov's version,

2303-437: 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 ( flute , recorder , oboe , bassoon , horn , or trumpet ,). Bach also wrote a concerto for two violins and orchestra. During

2352-554: Was one of his composition teachers. Thereafter, he earned his living chiefly by composing film scores , producing nearly 70 scores in 30 years. After his mother's death in 1972, he began to compose his Piano Quintet in her memory. During its composition, he began to seek solace in Catholicism ; he converted on 18 June 1983. He possessed deeply held beliefs in predestination and mysticism which influenced his music. Schnittke and his music were often viewed suspiciously by

2401-451: Was verfolgst du mich". The concerto began to take its modern shape in the late- Baroque period, beginning with the concerto grosso form developed by Arcangelo Corelli . Corelli's concertino group was two violins, a cello and basso continuo. In J. S. Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto , for example, the concertino is a flute, a violin, and a harpsichord; although the harpsichord is a featured solo instrument, it also sometimes plays with

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