Ernest Pingoud's 3rd Piano Concerto (1922)

[tpaloj]

An unpublished and unrecorded work, like many of Pingoud's orchestral pieces. It was performed in Berlin in 1923 with Leonid Kreutzer as soloist and Pingoud conducting.

It was further performed three times in Helsinki in early April, 1924, with Egbert Grape as soloist, then brought to fair success in Turku in 15.4.1924. A newspaper review mentions planned performances in London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Braunschwich, but I don't know if those performances ever materialized. It was later performed once in Finland in 1942, then just once more in 1958.

A review of the 15.4.1924 concert in Turku had praise for the work:

• "Less apocryphal than the composer's usual works..."
• "How beautiful the piano sounds! The difficult issue of combining the piano with the orchestra has been solved here in the most interesting and memorable fashion. The piano says just what belongs to it in terms of the work as a whole..."
• "The union of pure harmony and endlessly nonsensical melody, but above all, of harmony..."
• "The orchestra never attempts to drown the soloist's beautiful part, but instead contends to accompanying it poetically with just a few strokes of sounds..."
• "A few overflowing tutti sections in the main parts, yet the side themes are lyrical in nature..."
• "The composer especially utilizes the woodwind section beautifully..."

I found the second movement sublime, not unlike in mood to the slow movement of Pfitzner's PC, so I had to transcribe and upload it. A computer recording is far from perfect of course, but it's a start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1ASSALnkxI


PS: The first, brief 3 min movement of Pingoud's unrecorded, enticingly Scriabinesque "Cor Ardens", a symphonic poem about 16 minutes in length. Not sure it should warrant a new thread of its own, but here.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9d8bize74ji6ps1/Ernest%20Pingoud%20-%20Cor%20Ardens%2C%20Mvmt%20I.mp3?dl=0