for piano and large orchestra

Scoring

3-3-3-3 / 4-3-3-1 / timp+3 / hp / strings

Duration

37 Minutes

Recording

Album Title

The Symphonic Works of Daniel Asia: Gateways

Label

Summit Records [product id: DCD285]

Commissioned by

Meet Composer/Readers Digest for Andre-Michel Schub, piano, and six orchestras, including Phoenix, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Grand Rapids, Jacksonville (FL), and Chattanooga

Performances
Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra
Andre-Michel Schub, piano
Carl St. Clair, conductor
Other performances by the remaining orchestras in the 1995-6, 1996-7 seasons.

Program Notes

Piano Concerto is in three movements, with a total duration of approximately 38″. Both the first and last movement are about 9 minutes long, with the second movement being twice as long, at about 18 minutes. The work is for large orchestra, with winds in threes, 4 horns, brass in threes, 4 percussion, harp, and of course, strings.

Whereas the romantic concerto most frequently places the piano and orchestra in a confrontational relationship, this work seeks a middle ground between a conflict of forces and mere subservience in the orchestra. The piano carries the long narrative line for almost the entirety of the work (the piano plays almost without pause throughout), while the orchestra provides support and commentary, but rarely takes a leading role.

The first movement opens with a simple theme, which is extrovert and affirmative. Its nature lends itself to sequential development. This opening, and recurrent material, leads to a bumptious tune played in unison by the orchestra and piano. This tune is freely developed in successive variations by the piano, in dramatic guises that alternate from extrovert to introvert. The former is displayed in a certain angularity of line and quixotic rhythms, while the latter is much more regular in rhythm and the melodic line is decidedly placid. The movement ends briskly and conclusively, but with a sense of disquiet as well, that is only dispelled at the beginning of the second movement.

The second movement is, for the most part, ruminative and ethereal. By its shear length and musical weight, it is both figuratively and actually, at the “center” of the concerto. Its overall shape, while formally rather complex, is driven by the basic idea of a very gradual unfolding. It contains simple melodic statements, bell-like passages, and sections which are almost incantatory. Cadenzas, or cadenza-like sections, are found throughout the movement. Its penultimate section is a chorale, which leads back to the movements opening material, and a quiet, reposeful, close.

The third and final movement, regains the energy of the first movement, while synthesizing some of the harmonic implications of the second. Rhythmically playful and skittish, and very much a dance, it is a rondo in form.

Piano Concerto was commissioned for Andre-Michel Schub, by the Phoenix, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Grand Rapids, Jacksonville, Chattanooga, and North Carolina Symphony Orchestras, with the generous support of the Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest Commissioning Program. The first performances of the work were given by Andre-Michel Schub, piano, Carl St. Clair, conductor, and the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra, February 10, 11, 1995.

Reviews

J. KACZMARCZYK, THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
One of the most active orchestral composers working today,…Asia’s work is a remarkable pastiche of colorful orchestration surrounding jazzy rhythms and dark romanticism with an internal depth, almost a brooding intensity, propelling it forward.

A. BAER, ATLANTIC MONTHLY
Pianists have no shortage of concertos to choose from. Still, the appearance of a significant new one is no everyday affair. Daniel Asia’s, commissioned by a consortium of six regional American orchestras,…aspires to a place in the grand tradition. Exposure by the box-office virtuosi with America’s Big Five orchestras is overdue.