“Classical” Concerto

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Scores and parts for this piece are available for purchase by contacting me. A version with a piano reduction instead of chamber orchestra is also available.

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My “Classical” Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra was commissioned by the Sounds of Stow Festival Chorus and Orchestra, Barbara Jones, artistic director.  I began composing the work in January of 2012 and completed it in April of the same year.  Such rapid composing (according to my own habits) was largely thanks to residencies at Playa (Summer Lake, OR) and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center (Nebraska City, NE) during that time. 

This concerto explores my own relationship with that most famous of all composers, Mozart.  When I began studying the piano at the age of seven, I thought that his famous “Rondo alla Turca” was the pinnacle of the piano repertoire. (Of course, it was only about two years later when I was already playing that work.  Luckily I discovered there was much more repertoire to explore!)  I even remember having a white cassette tape with a recording of this piece and I used to listen to it on a little cassette player underneath a blanket fort beneath my father's desk.  But by the time I went to college to study music, I had become tired of the standard repertoire and with Mozart in particular.  At the time, I found his music boring, predictable, and not enjoyable to listen to.  But now, I have moved back to a middle-ground between these two extremes.  I enjoy listening to some of his works and enjoy reading through his piano music.  There are also many little elements of his style that I really like, and it is these that I have sought to use and blend with my own style in creating this concerto. 

The entire work is written in the traditional concerto form in three movements which are Fast-Slow-Fast.  The first movement is based on a sketch I had made as a senior in college.  I was then taking a class on the “Classical Symphony” and studying the Haydn and Mozart symphonies, among others.  I've always been blow away with these two composers' amazing quantity of symphonies.  Haydn wrote 106 and Mozart about 41 (while he only lived to be 35!) yet Beethoven and nearly every composer since never managed more than 9!  How did they write so many?  But in studying these works, I came to realize that they were usually using a much smaller orchestra than composers of the 19th and 20th centuries and many things were already decided for them based on the conventions of the classical style.  During that class, I decided that I wanted to try writing a classical symphony in the style of Mozart...and complete it in a single day!  Well, that didn't happen, but I did write about 30 seconds of the beginning of one and actually really liked it.  When I began thinking about writing this concerto, I decided to use that exact beginning of my unfinished symphony almost verbatim for the beginning of the concerto (this corresponds to about the first 16 measures of the concerto).  As a result, the first movement begins sounding as if it were a (perhaps lost?) Mozart symphony, but non-Mozartian things are gradually introduced until it is clear that this is something new and is indeed my own unique work.

For the second movement, I strove to create something simple yet beautiful, something which Mozart achieved time and time again.  The main theme is extremely simple, so simple in fact that when I created it I felt that I must not have written it but instead had heard it before somewhere.  But I've asked everyone I've showed it to and did a little bit of research, and so far it seems to be an original theme.  

The third movement is also based on music I wrote as an undergraduate.  During my composition class as a freshman, we were all assigned to write a short piano piece in the style of Mozart following the standard “Sonata Allegro” form.  Even at the age of 18, my attempt to copy Mozart's style found me sneaking in some things that Mozart would never have included.  I've always enjoyed that original piece and expanded and re-wrote portions of it for this final movement.

This work was also written for myself to perform as soloist, so the piano part was designed with my own strengths in mind.  However, I definitely have also included several passages that are designed to stretch my own pianistic technique.

Premiered November 18, 2012 by the Sounds of Stow Orchestra, Barbara Jones-conductor, with the composer at the piano at the Hale Middle School, Stow, MA.

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