Last year my piano adjudicator gave me a speech about competition concertos. Her story goes something like this. She was in this prestigious concerto competition in the USA (not sure which one) but she was an insanely good pianst and performing at carnegie hall soon. She learned Brahms 2 for competition and didnt advance to the finals. Her Uncle, a musical professor, talked to her after and condemned her for picking Brahms 2 to compete with. My adjudicator disagreed with him, but the uncle named 5 out of 6 concertos that made it to the finals without knowing, only guessing. He said that Brahms was simply too long. NEVER compete with Brahms 2 because although it is a good concerto, it is meant for performance, and not for competition. The 5 concertos the Uncle got right were:
Tchaikovsky 1
Liszt 2
Prokofiev 3
Chopin 2
Rach 2
The problem with Rach 1, as wonderful as it is, is that it simply isnt memorable. Wonderful music, but when the judges go to decide, they would far rather pick a Tchaik 1 over a rach 1. All the above concertos are technically demanding, and musically demanding, and not too long either. (Tchaik maybe is a little long, but thats the exception). Most saint-saens, ravel, gershwin, Brahms, are essentialy performance concertos. They rarely ever do well in serious competition. Although there are exceptions, the above concertos are IMO by far the best competition concertos. Other concertos that may be included are ravel concerto for left hand, liszt 1, but never rach 1, 3, 4, or gershwin anything, ravel G, or any saint-saens really.
SAM
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Topic: which concerto? (Read 1901 times)