Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major

this has been my absolute favorite piano concerto for at least a year now, and i'm not sure anything will change that too soon. it is being performed here next week, and so i have written program notes for it. they are necessarily brief because of the nature of the concert, which involves a lot of selections, but actually halfway through writing them i just turned on the capslock and wrote, I FUCKING LOVE THIS CONCERTO AND YOU SHOULD JUST LISTEN TO IT BEFORE I RUIN IT WITH PALTRY WORDS. and that's how i feel. but this is my best effort at it.

and this is the only recording anyone in need of a recording should watch:

he gets a real grace and elegance and effortlessness, and all while looking like it takes no effort at all. of course, just for shock value, the recording of bernstein conducting this WHILE AT THE PIANO is also worth a gander. argerich also has a beautiful rendition.

One of two piano concerti Ravel composed, this dazzling jazz-influenced work premiered to long-lasting success in 1932, with Marguerite Long at the piano and Ravel himself conducting. Though it sparkles pianistically, its color and character derive in equal part from Ravel's distinctive use of the orchestra, which is as vital in this work as in any of his exclusively orchestral compositions.

The first movement opens with a single whip crack and a sprightly first subject presented by the winds above a light accompaniment and scintillating flourishes in the piano. Gradually the entire orchestra joins in the theme, until the piano emerges with a rhapsodic discourse, punctuated by blues figures from the winds; the second theme ascends, lyrical and more introverted, is introduced quietly by the piano. Syncopated accents characterize the motorlike return of opening material, and the exposition concludes with a flourishing cadenza that brings back material from the opening. The dreamlike development is a thoughtful extension upon the first theme, featuring string harmonics, a harp solo, and massive colorful outbursts from the orchestra. The second theme's development crests into the same motor of sixteenths which incessantly drives us forward to the boisterous, brassy descending scale that concludes the movement.

The transcendent second movement spotlights one of Ravel's most ethereal strokes of lyrical genius, and one of his most hard-won. The first subject, presented initially only by the solo piano, exists serenely for several minutes, until a solo flute breaks the reverie and allows the rest of the orchestra to enter. The second subject is darker and accompanied by dissonant rising chords in brass and winds, but retains the stately loveliness imparted by the incessant waltz-like chords in the solo piano. After a brief and lushly dissonant zenith, the first theme is brought back by an extended English horn solo, around which the piano flows gently and continually to a glowing close.

The third movement is a moto perpetuo, a tour de force by both soloist and orchestra. It opens with four explosive chords which recur throughout the movement, and features difficult solos for almost all the wind and brass instruments. The movement switches between a sixteenth-note running motor and a galloping triplet figure, and ends abruptly, with the same four chords that open the movement.