Update Title: 2A3EB766-4911-4041-B19E-689FB0F09567

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The songs and dances of the Americas, born in the mountains, jungles, rivers, and plains, under the shadow of pyramids and temples, nourished by the winds and the ocean waves of adventur, courage, suffering, and endurance, finally grew up in the cities of the New Continent.  And, ironically, they conquered the collective soul of the whole earth.  This concerto was inspired by those pianists (Scott Joplin, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Horacio Salgan, Luis Eca, and many others) who changed the face of popular music in the Americas.  Like the great Romantic virtuoso-composers (I think of Chopin with his mazurkas, waltzes, and impromptus), their ideas and their fingers became one single entity, one unique form of musical expression.

The concerto is in three movements.  In the first one, Blues, the orchestral introduction is a collage of flashbacks in which the shouts of the slaves on the plantations are juxtaposed with minstrel shows, spirituals, ragtime, and big jazz band screams.  Like the blues, the piano's first statement makes a simple comment about time and memories.  And then two forms of music--jazz and the sonata--combine their attributes and superimpose their natures.  The first theme is a toccata in the shape of the blues; transitions and episodes of the type jazz  musicians call "channels," or "bridges," lead to the second theme, a chorale ("Gospel") and variations (or written improvisations).  The developement may be described in these lines:

The Blues
The Blues ain't
The Blues ain't nothing,
The Blues ain't nothing but a cold gray day and all night long stays that way.
Ain't something that leaves you alone,
Ain't nothing like nothing I know.

Recapitulation:  After the night journey the blues are coming back home--sometimes' through different alleys, sometimes through recurring paths.  And the piano converses with the orchestra ("taking turns," or "chasing") until the coda, in which they end the search for each other with affirmation and hope.  Two languages, one expression; two mirrors, one image.

The second movement, Tango, starts with the rhythm of a dream.  Rhapsodic, capricious, it dances from sensual motives that become the accompaniment to new themes interwoven as morning glories in the patios.  Suddenly, from the hidden corner of the narrow streets, a new gesture of defiance threatens the lyrical mood of the beginning; the contrasting themes walk side by side throughout the movement and slowly return (the piano in aduet with solo cello) to the mysterious atmosphere of the introduction.

Carnaval is the heading for the final movement.  The wind instruments start with the call for the Mardi Gras parade.  The rhythmic figures of the piano imitate various Afro- and Indo-American percussion instruments.  The trombone enunciates the principal motif and, like a swirl of masks, floats, and costumes, the piano and the orchestra are engaged in a dual celebration of ectasy.  Harlequins and Columbines dance vertiginously, running away from the shadows.  The sun sets.  A slow procession of candles and prayer before the relentless return of twilight.  And the night sings, jumps, and beats the drums once again as a recurrent invocation to life.  --Lalo Schifrin

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