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This chapter discusses Mozart's rich legacy of concertos in detail, with special attention given to the “Jenamy” Concerto, K. 271. The social and political context of the Viennese concertos is explored and the probable reasons for the erosion of Mozart's support in Vienna after 1786 are assessed. Issues of metaphorical meaning, including the comparison of the concerto to Greek tragedy, and dialogical, collaborative, and competitive aspects of the relationship between soloist and tutti are illustrated in a series of analyses, the most detailed of which concerns the first movement of the Concerto in C Minor, K. 491. Issues of orchestration and formal innovation, including Mozart's resourceful treatment of the rondo design in pieces such as the final Concerto in B-flat Major, K. 595, are also considered.

This chapter presents the text of music critic Lawrence Gilman's review of George Gershwin's performance of his Concerto in F at the Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony Orchestra (NYSO) which was published in the December 4, 1925, issue of the New York Herald. In his article, Gilman evaluates Gershwin's “jazz concerto” by applying each of those terms to the works content and he concludes that the vitality of the former makes dependence of the latter burdensome. He also mentions NYSO conductor Walter Damrosch's positive comments on Gershwin's composition and musical style.

This chapter opens with the first meeting of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn in December 1938. The section introduces Strayhorn’s first recorded works, including small-band arrangements and originals, including Something to Live For. It then looks at Passion Flower and Day Dream, and an arrangement of The Jumpin’ Jive, which shows Strayhorn tailoring a work to the Ellington orchestra. In 1940, the band recorded at least twenty Strayhorn charts. The chapter proceeds by analyzing the most significant scores, and unveils two uncredited Strayhorn contributions: Sepia Panorama and Concerto for Cootie. Next, shelved originals, such as the modernist piano-concerto Tonk, are analyzed. Three days before the 1941 broadcasting ban, the band recorded Strayhorn’s groundbreaking arrangement of Flamingo. The chapter analyzes the score, reprinted in full, and argues that it signals a radical break with the Ellington style.

This chapter argues that the various stylistic and formal elements that Bach assimilated from the Italian concerto were to become key factors in the development of his mature style, distinguishing it quite clearly from much of his earlier music. His various concerto transcriptions, toccatas, sonatas, and suites are discussed.

Sigismund Thalberg (1812-71) was the one pianist to rival Liszt in the 1830s. Bernard Ullman, with a decade of managerial experience, masterminded Thalberg's two-year American tour (1856-8) that included almost nightly concerts and totaled at least 340 concerts in seventy-eight cities. Thalberg found devoted audiences that returned over and over again to hear flawless performances of his celebrated virtuoso showpieces. While in the US, he also wrote variations on “The Last Rose of Summer” and “Home, Sweet Home”, the latter extremely successful. Ullman arranged a continuously changing roster of assisting artists that included singers and the American pianists Louis Moreau Gottschalk and William Mason. His performances of Beethoven concertos were a significant departure for a visiting virtuoso and were well received.

Drawing on Italian, French, German, and Viennese precedents, Haydn's early string quartets were among the first to define the genre's components: two violins, viola, and cello, without doubling and without basso continuo or contrabass support. The predominant cyclic design features a principal sonata-form movement followed by three other ingredients (minuet-trio, slow movement, finale) that unfold within its orbit. The six quartets in a normal opus group embrace various style topics and allusions, including popular song and dance, aria, concerto, and strict style. Each has a different tonal center; keys with few accidentals are favored; and connections are sometimes apparent between the prevailing character of a quartet and the traditional associations of its key. Minor tonality is always represented, normally by one quartet only. Virtually all groups feature musical wit, irony, and humor in addition to more elevated modes of discourse.

Most items within this small but important category involve alternatives to sonata form among the finales. Examples include the three fugues of Op. 20 (Nos. 2, 5, and 6) and that of Op. 50 (No. 4), as well as a number of rondo and rondo-related forms, beginning with three straightforward instances in Op. 33 (Nos. 2, 3, and 4) and including later hybrid forms that mix rondo elements with those of sonata, variation, or fugue. Other, less easily categorized designs include the “Capriccio” of Op. 20/2, which parodies mannerisms of serious opera; forms such as the slow movement of Op. 33/2, which alludes to various formal conventions without lapsing into any standard scheme; and several slow movements (those of Opp. 33/5, 50/2, and 55/1) whose form resembles that of an aria or solo concerto movement, with opening, central, and closing ritornellos, and (in the Op. 33 and 55 instances) notated cadenzas as well.

Noted for timbral brilliance and an accent on taxing first-violin delivery, this set, Op. 54/55, is traditionally linked to the violinist Johann Tost, who served as a middleman in its sale. Extroverted and intensely energetic, especially in the fast outer movements, these works display a wide tonal range, an enriched harmonic syntax, fast tempos, and streamlined surface activity. Whereas slow movements feature expressive soloistic embellishment (notably the ternary variation design of Op. 54/3, the gypsy lament of Op. 54/2, and the concerto-style Op. 55/1), the finales concentrate on compositional intrigue — especially Op. 55/1, with its synthesis of fugue (looking back to Op. 20) and rondo (as in Op. 33), and Op. 54/2, famous for the incomparably witty inspiration of a form that thwarts expectations at virtually every turn. Chromatic harmony figures prominently through inflections within phrases and remote tonal excursions within themes.

This chapter introduces musical elements relating to large-scale structure in the work, through to the micro-level of numbers of beats and measures, to serve possible larger predetermined frameworks. While each movement is subjected to a structural analysis, the manuscript poses special challenges in determining the correct placement within the work of parts of the sketches and how explaining those placements affect the overall structure of the three-movement work and its linking sections. The composer's own comments are taken into account and some alternative solutions are offered to support some of the clues found in the sketches. The principles of the Golden Section are discussed, and calculations based on the Fibonacci series are applied to seek answers to some of the incomplete sections. Possible links to the Third Piano Concerto are also explored to provide answers.

This chapter examines the aspects of the Viola Concerto that may, in the future, be developed in ways that lead to a more authentic version of the work. By discussing the work of the eminent Hungarian musicologist, László Somfai, on Bartók's compositional processes one can extrapolate on what the composer may have done in subsequent drafts of the Viola Concerto. In his Béla Bartók: Composition, Concepts, and Autograph Sources, Somfai recreates the steps followed in other works from first drafts to final drafts, and in his contribution to the facsimile edition of the manuscript, he outlines the probable order in which the various parts of the sketch were added. A bar by bar comparison of the first draft and engraver's copy of the Second Violin Concerto demonstrates the kind of changes that may have occurred had Bartók lived long enough to take the Viola Concerto to the same stage.

This chapter places Chopin within Warsaw's lively concert scene. The concert life in Warsaw was dominated by virtuoso concerts, featuring local and foreign artists, Niccolò Paganini and Johann Nepomuk Hummel among them. The conventions and repertories associated with the virtuoso concerts, piano concertos in particular, as well as Chopin's earliest public concerts are discussed in detail. At the same time, music societies provided opportunities for performances on symphonic and chamber repertories that included the works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. There were ambitious performances of sacred music in Warsaw churches, especially the Piarists' Church which hosted the Society for Church Music, and the Lutheran Church, which during the 1820s attracted Warsaw's best musicians, including the young Chopin. Musical performances also took place in many cafés. In some cafés, artistic projects were discussed and artistic events received the most candid reviews; others fostered an atmosphere of intense patriotism.

This chapter challenges the popular image of Mozart's music as having sprung into existence fully formed by analyzing his manuscripts and creative process. In the case of the first movement of the “Dürnitz” Sonata, K. 284, Mozart completely rewrote the first movement; his draft for the opening movement of the Concerto in C Major, K. 503 was set aside for an extended time, and the opening solo passage was then extensively rewritten. Both examples support Georg Nissen's claim from 1828 that “one doesn't believe the gossip at all, according to which he [Mozart] tossed off his significant works swiftly and hurriedly”.

This chapter presents Reich's thoughts about Aaron Copland. He talks about listening to recordings of Copland's ballets as a teenager and the romance of America they conjured up. Later, at Cornell, he heard his Clarinet Concerto written for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, and the Piano Quartet that began his encounter with 12-tone music.

Gerald Finzi's last new work was the cantata In Terra Pax. This work is significant not only for its intrinsic beauty, but because it seemed to gives hope of even better things to come. These hopes will not be fulfilled. In Terra Pax is characteristically founded on a poem by Robert Bridges. Finzi's music shows extraordinary affinity with this poet and with Thomas Hardy: both their language and their thought find an absolute counterpart in his settings. Finzi's compositions range from the slightest of songs through the noble cantata Dies Natalis, to the large scale choral work Intimations of Immortality. He also wrote much purely instrumental music, including concertos for clarinet, violoncello, and pianoforte. In all these works one finds something absolutely personal that will last on when other more showy, but less truly original, compositions are forgotten.

The first two movements of the Piano Concerto were sketched in 1926, and the third movement in 1930. The work is dedicated to Miss Harriet Cohen. There are three movements: Toccata leading to Romanza leading to Fuga chromatica con Finale alla Tedesca. There is no break between the movements. After various episodes a stretto on a dominant pedal is reached, built up chiefly on an augmentation of part of the fugue subject with which the subject and counter-subject of the fugue are combined. A cadenza for the pianoforte separates the fugue and the Finale, the subjects of which are the same as those of the fugue, but treated harmonically rather than contrapuntally; and finally there is another cadenza for the pianoforte. The cadenza ends with a quotation two bars long from a contemporary composer, added “according to my promise.” Then a few bars of Allegro bring the Concerto to an end.

The form of the Tuba Concerto is nearer to the form of Johann Sebastian Bach than to that of the Viennese School, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven, though the first and last movements each finish up with an elaborate cadenza that allies the concerto to the Mozart-Beethoven form. The music is fairly simple and obvious and can probably be listened to without much previous explanation. The orchestration is that of the so-called theatre orchestra consisting of woodwind, two each of horns, trumpets and trombones, timpani, percussion and strings. Tuba concertos started to appear in the middle of the twentieth century, and finally gave lie to the cliché that the tuba was heavy, clumsy, and incapable of playing fast.

The point of departure for John Benson Brooks for his “Alabama Concerto” was a series of field recordings made by Harold Courtlander and this featured on Folkways as “Negro Folk Music of Alabama.” He has used them in an extended “concerto” in which written themes, written solos, and improvised solos alternate. Let it be said that the musicians involved should be given praise and recognition, especially Art Farmer and Barry Galbraith. Let it also be said that Cannonball Adderley was the Cannonball to be heard on Gil Evans' LP “New Bottle, Old Wine” which is Cannonball coming of age as an purposeful storytelling soloist.

This chapter presents the text of music critic Samuel Chotzinoff's review of George Gershwin's performance of his Concerto in F at the Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony Orchestra (NYSI) in December 1925. Chotzinoff noted that the announcement of Gershwin's first attempt at symphonic form generated more anticipatory excitement than Deems Taylor's symphonic poem Jurgen. He also described the composition as one that cannot be explained with certainty.