Example Music Essay

Describe the development in the keyboard concerto from c.1710-1790, and assess why the type became so well-known with each composers and public.

 

This essay explores the developmentof the keyboard concerto during the 18th century thinking itsprecursors, social and economic context and the advent with the piano. Byexploring the work of key composers during the 18th century, it willbe shown how musical and social shifts created an environment in whichenduring, well-liked and technically adventurous piano concertos could emerge.

Early Concertos

 

Concertos are normally defined asinstrumental works exactly where a smaller group (in a concerto grosso) or soloist (ina solo concerto) contrasts against the sonority of the larger grouping. Thistechnique was employed in orchestration during the 17th century in workssuch as canzonas (Grout 1988: 473), of the concerto type emerging for the theend of the 17th century. Probably probably the most influential composers ofearly concertos were Corelli, Torelli and Vivaldi. Wellesz and Sternfield(1973: 435) trace the emergence on the early concerto form via these threecomposers.

 

Corelli's twelve Opus 6 concertigrossi have been written at the end in the 17th century with a structureconsisting of the somewhat random alternation of slow and fast movements.Movements were ritornello-based (a ritornello is being a refrain), withalternating tutti and concertino passages showing limited decoration orexploration of thematic material.

 

Torelli, composing at the turn ofthe century, wrote concerti grossi and solo concerti. He established the threemovement (fast-slow-fast) structure that was widely adopted. Torelli alsoexplored the use of contrasting thematic items inside concertos andincreased the complexity of solo lines.

 

Vivaldi, writing during the early 18thcentury, refined the form, with far more exploration of thematic contrasts,although Kolneder (1986b: 307-8) argues that Vivaldi's material is perhapsbetter described as motifs than themes.

 

Although these three composers werekey towards emergence from the concerto form, their instrumentation focused onstrings. Vivaldi wrote some flute and bassoon concerti, and orchestras wouldtypically include a continuo keyboard part, but the first composers to use solokeyboard in concertos had been Bach, Handel and Babel.

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