What's your favourite concerto?

[BBMmk2]

Funnily enough, I was thinking about this, as a thread but thought no!

But as it’s here I think my favourite concerto has to be Rachmaninov's PC3!

I am divided as to what recording to have but it's either Vladimir Ashkenazy, LSO, Previn, or Marthe Argerich(Deutsche SO, Berlin/Chailly)

[Barbirollians]

It still feels like a special occasion when programmed.

Similarly a new release of the work on disc always makes me sit up.

Me too - I think there are only a few esoteric recordings that I do not own.

[jayne lee wilson]

First name to come to mind was.. Martinu... Piano Concerto No.2.
It's that lilting, haunting, so-slavonic, so-seductive 2nd subject... the first time I heard it, I felt something like ..."where has this gorgeous, lovable thing been hiding all my life...?"
I can feel tears-in-my-eyes just thinking about it now.

But it is a great, perfectly balanced Concerto in Martinu's most thrillingly concise, impassioned Neo-Classical-Romantic vein...

[mahlerei]

Does Stravinsky's Concerto for Two Solo Pianos count? Discovered via a splendid new Hyperion release, with Hamelin and Andsnes in scintillating form.

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68189

If not, Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Strings & Timpani will do for now.

[EdgeleyRob]

Similarly,if Alkan's Concerto for solo piano doesn't count I'll take the Elgar Violin

[pastoralguy]

So many to choose from but I'll go for Tchaikovsky's Violin concerto. Probably the first concerto I ever wanted to play.

[Conchis]

I'm a piano man, generally, but Brahms Violin Concerto is probably my favourite concerto work.

If I liked the outer parts of Sibelius Violin Concerto as much as I like the central one, my choice might be different.

[teamsaint]

Post no 23 before the Britten VC gets a mention. Surprising.
Not necessarily that I would choose it, just saying......

[Ferretfancy]

There are so many masterpieces amongst the Mozart concertos. Even though I'm a pianist and love so many of the PCs, I think I might go for the Sinfonia Concertante (violin and viola). (The 'Mannheim rocket', the crescendo, gets me every time! Even before a soloist comes in. Then there's the interplay between them...)

I first heard the Sinfonia Concertante 70 years ago at a Saturday night Music Club at school played by a small handful of instrumentalists and featuring two of our teachers as soloists. It was a magic moment then, and the magic returns every time I hear this short miracle. Definitely top of my list.

[Petrushka]

Definitely the Elgar Violin Concerto for me. The music has such strong personal associations in my case that no other concerto comes close to be being my favourite.

It took me a long time to 'get' the concerto but once I did - WOW! The recording that did it for me, and still does, was Perlman with Barenboim and the Chicago SO in 1982. I've heard Perlman perform it twice, Nigel Kennedy twice and, the very first time I heard it at all, Martin Milner, leader of the Halle Orchestra.

Most underrated recording of the Elgar is Kyung-Wha Chung with Solti and the LPO.

Other concertos that I love are the Mozart Clarinet and Rachmaninov 2, both very special.

[Pianorak]

Still in half a dozen minds, but "strong personal associations" will have to be the deciding factor: Rach 2 with Julius Katchen/New Symphony Orchestra/Anatole Fistoulari.

[Lat-Literal]

I have a strong leaning towards piano concertos and I would probably have to go with the predictable Rach 2. Elsewhere, I also like the equally predictable Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo. These were numbers 2 and 7 respectively in ABC's poll. At number 67, RVW, The Lark Ascending! Sorry to show my ignorance but is it? I thought it was more of a tone poem.

I will throw in a couple of off the wall things for interest sake -Alexander Tcherepnin's Piano Concerto No. 4 and Gipps's Piano Concerto, both of which I love, and the harmonica ones played by John Sebastian, Senior, the father of John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful (A Tcherepnin and Villa-Lobos). I also find Rautavaara's ones fascinating and, in places, stirring. Plus the Griegs and the Gershwins and the Tchaikovskys but then we are back to the predictable. Overall, I think I have heard a lot but I have less of a grasp than on symphonies.

[pastoralguy]

Definitely the Elgar Violin Concerto for me. The music has such strong personal associations in my case that no other concerto comes close to be being my favourite.

It took me a long time to 'get' the concerto but once I did - WOW! The recording that did it for me, and still does, was Perlman with Barenboim and the Chicago SO in 1982. I've heard Perlman perform it twice, Nigel Kennedy twice and, the very first time I heard it at all, Martin Milner, leader of the Halle Orchestra.

Most underrated recording of the Elgar is Kyung-Wha Chung with Solti and the LPO.

Have you heard the latest recording of the Elgar from Racheal Barton-Pine with the BBC Symphony under Andrew Litton?
A very fine performance, imho.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Fairly straightforward choice for me:

Moeran: Violin Concerto

[cloughie]

When Asked for a Symphony I could not give you one, but for the concerto it has to be Brahms PC2 - the only close runner is the beautiful Mozart Flute and Harp, and for the individual concerto movement would have to be the 2nd movt of Tchaik PC2.