What's your favourite concerto?

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  • BBMmk2
    Late Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 20908

    #16
    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)
    Don’t cry for me
    I go where music was born

    J S Bach 1685-1750

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    • Barbirollians
      Full Member
      • Nov 2010
      • 11669

      #17
      Originally posted by Alison View Post
      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.

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      • jayne lee wilson
        Banned
        • Jul 2011
        • 10711

        #18
        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...

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        • mahlerei
          Full Member
          • Jun 2015
          • 357

          #19
          Does Stravinsky's Concerto for Two Solo Pianos count? Discovered via a splendid new Hyperion release, with Hamelin and Andsnes in scintillating form.

          <p>Shortly before its notorious Paris ballet premiere in 1913, this was essentially how <i>The Rite of Spring</i> first saw the light of day: Leif Ove Andsnes and Marc-André Hamelin recapture the heady, visceral thrill which must have been in the air when Stravinsky sat down at the piano with Debussy to create this landmark of modernism.</p> <p><i>Leif Ove Andsnes appears courtesy of Sony Classical International.</i></p>


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

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          • EdgeleyRob
            Guest
            • Nov 2010
            • 12180

            #20
            Similarly,if Alkan's Concerto for solo piano doesn't count I'll take the Elgar Violin

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            • pastoralguy
              Full Member
              • Nov 2010
              • 7737

              #21
              So many to choose from but I'll go for Tchaikovsky's Violin concerto. Probably the first concerto I ever wanted to play.

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              • Conchis
                Banned
                • Jun 2014
                • 2396

                #22
                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.

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                • teamsaint
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 25194

                  #23
                  Post no 23 before the Britten VC gets a mention. Surprising.
                  Not necessarily that I would choose it, just saying......
                  I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                  I am not a number, I am a free man.

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                  • Ferretfancy
                    Full Member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 3487

                    #24
                    Originally posted by silvestrione View Post
                    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.

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                    • Petrushka
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 12232

                      #25
                      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.
                      "The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink

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                      • Pianorak
                        Full Member
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 3127

                        #26
                        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.
                        My life, each morning when I dress, is four and twenty hours less. (J Richardson)

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                        • Lat-Literal
                          Guest
                          • Aug 2015
                          • 6983

                          #27
                          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.
                          Last edited by Lat-Literal; 15-02-18, 22:59.

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                          • pastoralguy
                            Full Member
                            • Nov 2010
                            • 7737

                            #28
                            Originally posted by Petrushka View Post
                            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.

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                            • Suffolkcoastal
                              Full Member
                              • Nov 2010
                              • 3290

                              #29
                              Fairly straightforward choice for me:

                              Moeran: Violin Concerto

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                              • cloughie
                                Full Member
                                • Dec 2011
                                • 22115

                                #30
                                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.

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