Music Discussion thread

[Froge]

What's your favorite concerto, excluding the Chopin concerti?

An odd question, as I don't really know how to answer that, but I suppose I'll start listing composers.

For the classical era, I'd say that I enjoy Mozart's concerti most, even more than Beethoven's. I find Beethoven's concerti to be a bit boring to listen to. They are very complex thematically, and are probably a treat to play, but I haven't found them interesting to listen to. Mozart, on the other hand, is a very prolific melody composer. If you listen to some of his more famous concertos like op 23 or op 20 you can hear a very clear and beautiful melody. Mozart also excels at the interplay between piano and orchestra. In many of his piano concerti, he frequently uses the piano as "build up" to create rising tension followed up by an explosive orchestral "tutti".

In the romantic era, I'm not actually too impressed by the concerti available. Let's start with Tchaikovsky. Admittedly, I've only listened to Tchaikovsky's no 1, as that is his most famous one. Like many other Russian composers, he uses a lot of big chords and large octave jumps. Melodically, though, I'm not impressed. I don't mean to be prejudiced against Russian composers, but to be honest, I don't really feel much from large chords. I'm too used to the gentle and delicate nocturne style, where the right hand is a clear and flowing melody and the left hand is harmonic accompaniment. Call me narrow-minded, but I've listened to Tchaikovsky's concerto 1 over and over again and I've come to the conclusion that the only way I could possibly enjoy it is if I learned how to play the piece myself. I cannot pick out the intricacies from simple hearing alone.

One Russian composer who I find very interesting is Profokiev. I've listened to his second and third concerti and I think they offer much more creativity than Tchaikovsky's melody-wise. The best way to describe Profokiev's compositions is "quirky", in my opinion. His pieces also offer many large octave jumps, particularly with staccato, but his usage of it is more profound, creating the effect of cheeriness in either an upbeat or sometimes sarcastic way. Every time I listen to Profokiev I'm reminded of a curious child wandering dangerously into dark troubles. Personally, I enjoy his concerto 3 a bit more than 2.

The last famous Russian composer I'll mention is Rachmaninoff. I don't think there's much to say about his works that hasn't already been said by most musical critics. His concerto no 2 is quite brilliant, if not a bit "too" brilliant for me - it radiates positive energy that I sometimes feel unable to take in, mostly because my musical tastes are far too mellow. Yes, Rachmaninoff does still use a ton of large chords in his works, but I think still think he crafts a better melody than Tchaikovsky. I also really like Rach's concerto no 3. I believe this one is particularly known for its difficulty, and I haven't even looked at the sheet music for it yet, but from what I've heard it's tremendously more heartwarming than the second, perhaps also a bit sadder, so that would obviously suit my tastes more. Try listening to Martha Argerich's performance of the piece, which is readily available on youtube.

Going back to the romantic era, there are still two famous composers that I haven't discussed yet, Brahms and Liszt. To be honest, I haven't listened to much Brahms. I know he's a prolific melody composer from the few sonatas of his that I've heard, but he's no Chopin. In particular I find Brahms to be a bit less intense. Many of his pieces are quite serene, and you won't find the sheer tension and buildup that is more characteristic of Chopin's ballades. The exception is Brahms' concerto no 1. I haven't listened to it in a while, but I recall that there was a very furious section in either the second or third movement which was completely astounding. Otherwise, nothing much of Brahms has particularly caught my attention. His concerti are decent, but they're not mind-blowing.

Liszt is a bit of a strange composer. I've listened to most of his concerti, and so far the only one that really impresses me is his first. Thing is, though, I find Liszt's first piano concerto to be so much better than his other ones that I really can't judge him as a whole. Maybe it's because Liszt, like Chopin, was primarily a piano composer - and indeed, I'm much fonder of Liszt's piano etudes and his b minor sonata than his concerti. What I really enjoyed of Liszt's first piano concerto was that it presented a fairly enjoyable and sweet melody throughout. It starts bombastically, with lots of orchestration, but is followed up soon enough by a quieter and more tranquil piano section. The rest of the piece is a bit more intricate, and further analysis is necessary - I've no time to learn how to play it, though.

There are still many other composers that I haven't mentioned like Schubert (whose sonatas and fantaisies I've experienced), but seriously, there are too many classical composers out there and I don't have something to say for each of them.

So to answer your question, if Chopin is excluded from my list of choices, my favourite concerti would vary from era to era. For classical, I'd definitely say Mozart, but I can't pick a specific concerto because he simply composed too many and I've only really had the time to listen to his most popular ones no. 20 - 23. In the romantic era, I have no means to choose between Liszt and Brahms, simply because they're too overshadowed by a certain Polish vodka brand. For the post-romantic era, I'll have to go with Rach 3.