Concertos for occasional solo instruments.

[Paul Barasi]

On the Rott Symphony's triangle, some belive the composer would have cut this back had he ever heard the last movement - I'm not so sure.

cheers

paul

[peter_conole]

Hi all

Especially Eschiss1. You are right - specialists re accordion/concertina music seem to have identified up to five 'concertos' for concertina composed during the 19th century. However, a couple are problematic and as far as I know only one has been performed/recorded with orchestral accompaniment.

Details as follows:

Bernhard Molique - as discussed earlier. No 1 from 1853, no 2 from 1861. Sadly, the orchestral score for no.1 was lost and conductor Dewey Ehling reconstructed it for a 1997 concert performance. I assume that is the version that reached Australian radio by some miracle in 2002. I believe no 2 has survived in the same condition.

George macfarren (1813-1887). A biography of 1892 claimed he composed a concertina concerto. Am willing to bet the work is identifiable with his Andante and Allegro for Concertina and strings of 1877 - never published.

Franz Bosen (who?). A large-scale fledged Concertina Concerto in D major of 1864. It has survived. Published only with piano accompaniment, which may well have been its original form. Not uncommon - to give just a couple of examples, flautist Cesare Ciardi and mandolin virtuoso Raffaele Callace composed their concertos for solo instrument and piano only.

Giulio Regondi (1822-1872). A couple of general reference works mention a concertina concerto, but I have not been able to unearth any details. The work just might be the Morceau de Salon mentioned in a Wikipedia article, or it could be buried in a partly illegible catalogue of Regondi's works kindly provided online by one Alessandro Amisich. The Giulio Regondi Guild issued two discs of music by the composer - they are both still available, but neither includes a concerto.

regards
Peter

[Marcus]

Hello peter_conole,
The Molique Concerto op46 was indeed played on ABC Radio Classic-FM on 4/10/2002.
It had been performed the previous week in the Brisbane Custom house by the Armenian String Virtuosi, with the accordianist Quynh Trang Nguyen , accordian. Also on the program was the Alphorn Concertino by Farkas.
The concert was played on ABC radio the following week, and is an ABC recording. THe ABC have an enormous recording archive, and I presume this is still held in their vault. ABC Classic-FM have a listener request programs, and if you wish to hear it, why not e-mail Marion Arnold, (presenter),(refer ABC Classic-FM web-site),with a request to hear it. The Australian classical music stations ABC, & 2MBS, 3MBS,4MBS,5MBS 6MBS in each state are easily available via i/net radio.
With the popularity of the accordian in France & Europe ,I would be surprised if more romantic accordian works are not unearthed.
Marcus.

[mbhaub]

Has anyone mentioned the Leopold Mozart Concerto for Hosepipe and Strings? Or, even better, the Concerto for Conductor and Orchestra by Francis Chagrin? And my favorite the Concerto popolare by Franz Reizenstein. All of course realized by the inventive Gerard Hoffnung.

[eschiss1]

British Library Reference Collections apparently has an "Andante and Allegro from the 1st concerto in D for the concertina" by Regondi, but Worldcat says nothing about the scoring? (actually, going to catalogue.bl.uk directly adds &piano. Ok. Published around 1855. Exists in two records, one mentions piano, one doesn't.)
They also have a Beriot concerto (his 1st) transcribed by Regondi for the concertina, and this andante and allegro may be from _that_ work, not from a concerto written by Regondi (I forget, is Beriot's first concerto in D? Well, it might be from someone's work transcribed by Regondi. Hrm. Probably not the Beriot, anyway- which seems to be in one movement?) and the title may not disambiguate enough... sigh. Still, seems unlikely- I would put in a guess for its being an original composition.

[JimL]

de Beriot's first VC, the Concert Militaire is indeed in D, but it is in a single movement, without an 'Andante', so I doubt the Regondi work is a transcription.

[Marcus]

Slightly off-topic, but regarding unusual insrtuments:
We have all heard of the  Bass Flute,  Contra-Alto & Contrabass Flute, but I am amazed to discover a Sub-Contrabass Flute  and a Hyperbass Flute, and there has been music written for all of them.
The Hyperbass Flute is not an instrument one would tuck under an arm while running for a bus. It is over 8m in length, (tubing conveniently layered), pitched in C, its lowest note (Co) is 4 octaves below the lowest C on the standard Flute, and an octave below the lowest C on the Piano (C1).
Player Roberto Fabbriciani has already recorded a piece "Con Fuoco" by composer Nicolas Sani. I doubt if most of us could actually hear a note so low, and I really wonder what purpose  they serve. I suppose it relates to pushing the boundries. Very low notes on such instruments would be  indistinct and "muddy" anyway, but Sylvio Lazzari (1857-1944), makes good use of them on conventional instruments,(Bass Clarinet & Contrabassoon), to create the atmosphere (at the beginning),in one of the great French unsung Symphonic Poems,  "Effet de Nuit", and Wagner needs no mention.
I have seen a photo of an Octo-Bass (Dble Bass), standing 3.5metres in height, which was either made, and, or, played  in Paris in the mid 19th century,(1849 ?) but as far as I know it has remained in the museum.
Marcus.

[TerraEpon]

George macfarren (1813-1887). A biography of 1892 claimed he composed a concertina concerto.

That makes me think of something missed in this thread -- the two concerto by Astor Piazzolla. One is for Bandoneon, Percussion, and Strings, and the other is for Bandoneon, Guitar, and Orchestra. Wonderful pieces, well worth hearing

.

Has anyone mentioned the Leopold Mozart Concerto for Hosepipe and Strings?

Do you mean alphorn, perhaps? There's a whole disc of alphorn concerti on Marco Polo (re-released on Naxos). It has the L. Mozart, as well as two pieces by someone named Daetwyler (one with a piccolo solo too!), and a piece by Fenric Farkas.

[John Hudock]

TerraEpon,

Exactly right, Piazzolla completely skipped my mind. I love his music, but I have him classifed under Tango rather than Classical, so when I did a scan for concertos in my collection, I completely missed him.

Closely related to the bandoneon, the accordion has a several concertos by:

Peter Paul Koprowski Concerto for accordion & orch
Nikolai Chaikin  (who wrote two, one of which is recorded on Naxos coupled with a Balalaika concerto by Yuri Shishakov and a suite for orchestra of folk instruments by  Gorodovskaya)
Anders Koppel (for violin & accordian, on DaCapo coupled with a concerto for Saxaphone & piano)
Brian Current (I'm not sure this has been recorded, but it was performed in Nova Scotia and you can listen online at: http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cod/concerts/20090312petric)
Charles Camilleri concerto for accordion & strings
S. Berinski (Sym No 3 for accordion (bayan) & orch)
Erkki Jokinen for accordion and chamber orch
Cecil Effinger Nocturne for accordion & strings
Walter Buczynski  Fantasy on themes of the Past, for accordion & string orch
Carmine Coppola Concerto for Accordion & Orch
Timo-Juhani Kyllönen concerto for accordion & orch (It's listed as No 1, but I could find no evidence of a second even at the composers website)
Michael Easton concerto for piano, accordion & strings
Fumio Yasuda concerto for accordion and orch

Roy Harris Theme and Variations for accordion and orchestra
Paul Pisk Adagio and Rondo Concertante  for two accordions and orchestra
Henry Cowell Concerto Brevis for Accordion & Orch
Paul Creston Concerto for  Accordion & Orch (old recording by Carmen Carozza)
Anthony Galla-Rini Two Concertos for  Accordion & Orch
Pietro Deiro Three Concertos
Alan Hovhaness Concerto for Accordion & orch.
The accordion also has a very prominent place in many other pieces by Hovhaness, especially one of my favorites, the Rubiyat of Omar Khayam

I'm not sure if any of the pieces from Harris, Pisk, Galla-Rini or Deiro have been recorded.

Trying to stick to concertos or concertante works, but it deserves mention in talking about accordion Aho wrote two sonatas for solo accordion, and there are several other significant chamber works for accordion (maybe for another thread)

Given it's versatility and range (and there are some truly phenomenal virtuoisi of the instrument, a quick scan of Youtube shows some amazing amateurs cf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p79ucaj-nNg), it's amazing more composers haven't utilized the accordion as a solo instrument.

[Amphissa]

 
I am shocked -- shocked -- that no one has mentioned the master composer for all instruments extraordinaire, the world-renowned innovator who not only writes for the oddest of instruments, but invents odd instruments to write for, and whose music is performed often to packed houses and great delight around the globe .....

I am shocked that no one has mentioned our most famous living composer in the classical and romantic tradition, known and loved by youth and elder, scholar and businessman, critics and audiences alike ......

I am shocked that no one has mentioned P.D.Q. Bach.

And now that his name is out, I'm sure I need not list the hundreds of compositions for odd instruments that have issued from his fertile talent.

[eschiss1]

I gather the bayan is very similar to the accordion, and has several concertante works written for it by Sofia Gubaidulina-
Eric

[John Hudock]

Amphissa,

Funny you should mention it, I had intended to make a note of PDQ and then forgot.

PDQ Bach did compose among other things the wonderfully and delicately balanced Concerto for Ocarina and Bagpipes. As Peter Shickele said when describing the work (this is from memory, so I paraphrase) "when the bagpipes are playing you can't hear anything else and you can't hear the ocarina when there is another instrument in the room".

Also notable is the concerto for Lasso d'amore.

[Amphissa]

Now that I've gotten the true master on the board, here are a few more mundane picks.

Robert Denhof (b. 1945) has written a lot of pieces for atypical instruments. Examples include:
- Rondo und Sonate for accordion
- Kasachische suite for flute and accordion
- Konzertstück for tuba and piano
- Skomoroski for orchestra of Russian folk instruments
- Skizzen : Russische Peigage for celesta
- Scherzo for 2 bayans (or accordions)
- Quintet for accordion (bayan) and string quartet
- Concerto for xylphone and flute orchestra
- 12 elegies for zither
- 5 Miniaturen for 2 zithers and 3 zithers
- Medeo for saxophone and orchestra of Russian folk instruments
- 2 Suites for violin and trombone
- Romanze for saxophone quartet
- 24 Miniatüres for Celtic or troubadour harp

The most intriguing to me, and the search that led me to Denhof, was the Zither. In the U.S. and maybe Britain, it is known as the Hammered Dulcimer. It has existed in various forms since biblical days.

There are many transcriptions of classical works for hammered dulcimer, but I was curious to know if there were any classical pieces written specifically for the instrument. Denhof, above, has some pieces for it. There are a few others:

Geza Allaga - Hungarian Concerto for Hungarian Hammered Dulcimer and Hungarian Rhapsody for Hungarian Hammered Dulcimer and String Quintet

Lee Hyla (American) - Concerto For Piano and Chamber Orchestra No. 2 (1991) -- the title sounds so traditional. But the instrumentation "for Bass Clarinet, Percussion, Flute, Hammered Dulcimer, Bassoon, Horn, Trombone, Strings (one) and Clarinet." Another of his pieces, Amnesia Variance, features Cello, Viola, Violin, Piano, Clarinet and Hammered Dulcimer.

I'm sure there are a few more. There are versions of the hammered dulcimer/zither as traditional instruments in most Eastern cultures, so there are probably Asian-inspired classical music (or should it be the other way around) featuring those instruments. I just don't know  the names of them.

[Peter1953]

For whom are all these exotic and eccentric works written? Is there an audience? Enough to fill a concert hall? I really have no idea at all.

[JimL]

Amphissa,

Funny you should mention it, I had intended to make a note of PDQ and then forgot.

PDQ Bach did compose among other things the wonderfully and delicately balanced Concerto for Ocarina and Bagpipes. As Peter Shickele said when describing the work (this is from memory, so I paraphrase) "when the bagpipes are playing you can't hear anything else and you can't hear the ocarina when there is another instrument in the room".

Also notable is the concerto for Lasso d'amore.

I still plump for the Concerto for Horn and Hardart.