Orchestral piano

[Richard Barrett]

If you don't mind me asking, was the piece always going to be called Vanity, Richard?

Was that the starting point?

I think that was always going to be the title, yes, but the starting point really was to think about how an approach to the orchestra from first principles might sound. (Or how the impossibility of such an approach might sound!)

Mahler 8 is a perhaps not obvious example of orchestral piano (maybe one of the earliest?). Berio's Sinfonia is another that springs to mind.

[zola]

Petrushka of course. Maybe one of the few where the pianist habitually gets an individual acknowledgement for applause at the end ?

[Nick Armstrong]

Lovely bit at the start of the Development section of the Shostakovich #5: the tempo gets twice as quick, and the piano at the bottom of its register takes over the previously gentle motif and starts the process of thematic brutalisation. Superb integration of piano with the percussion section throughout this work.

... That was going to be my contribution to this thread!



I love the way DSCH uses the piano in that piece.

"Two minds with but a single thought" as my granny used to say.... (not in an entirely complimentary way! )

[Richard Barrett]

Berio's Sinfonia is another that springs to mind.

And (how could I forget!) several works by Stockhausen: Gruppen and Carré (both of which have memorable if brief solos), and most prominently Inori with its ecstatic passage of rising melody like a distant point on the Ravel-Gershwin axis.

And Messiaen of course, but probably he doesn't count in that his piano parts are usually played by named soloists.

[Nick Armstrong]

Martinu: Symphony 4

I think I'm right in saying that each of Martinu's symphonies has a part for orchestral piano (except the Fantaisies Symphoniques, No 6).

Love the orchestral piano in Saint-Saens's 3rd, as mentioned by pastoralguy.

I'd forgotten about Mahler 8, RB!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Petrushka of course. Maybe one of the few where the pianist habitually gets an individual acknowledgement for applause at the end ?

Yes - that's one of the "not-quite-a-concertante" parts, the piano very definitely at the forefront (for half the work, anyway) rather than a member of the orchestra with/without a solo.

There's also the piano part in the Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion, & Celesta which Stravinsky nicked in his "Symphony in Three" - both terrific pieces.

[teamsaint]

That was my immediate thought too, alongside Perséphone and Earth Dances, and indeed Schreker's Chamber Symphony which I was listening to this morning, and which I hereby recommend very highly for those who don't know it - how Schreker manages to get his characteristically decadent and luxuriant sound out of only two dozen players is rather miraculous, time to hav a look at the score I think.

Thanks for your kind words about Vanity. The piano in that piece has two players by the way.

The Schreker is a great recommendation. Thanks for that.

A bit spookily, I played it on youtube, and it ran ( via some Zemlinsky) to Borodin 2, which was the work Alison was listening to along with Vanity, and then to Rach's Symphonic Dances, with its piano part.

[Alison]

http://youtu.be/wBVT7fGYbzA

[Nick Armstrong]

Rach's Symphonic Dances, with its piano part.

[Barbirollians]

Petrushka

[pastoralguy]

Aaron Copland's 'Rodeo' which, iirc, has a part for honky tonk piano.

[Pianoman]

A substantial (and difficult) piano part in Tippett's Concerto for Orchestra, which I'm just re-evaluating..

[vinteuil]

... I've always liked those oddities - Ch'io mi scordi di te? K505, and Beethoven's Chorphantasie op 80 - where the pianner plays a surprisingly important rôle.

[Pulcinella]

A substantial (and difficult) piano part in Tippett's Concerto for Orchestra, which I'm just re-evaluating..

There's a piano in his second symphony too.
And his fourth!

[gurnemanz]

I started to rack my brains for where we had recently seen a piano in the opera pit. I think it must have been Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites at ROH.