| Marketing Copy | This concerto was composed during the winter of 1923-24 when Stravinsky was living in France and touring as a concert pianist. The premiere was in Paris in 1924 with Koussevitzky conducting and Stravinsky as soloist. The work remained the exclusive performance right of Stravinsky, who performed it around 40 times in the next five years. The scoring for the concerto is unconventional, employing a large band of woodwinds and brass made deliberately bottom-heavy by the addition of both timpani and double basses. Unfortunately, this concept was not clear to everyone at the time of the first performance. Stravinsky wrote the following some months later: “I remember that I was reproached on the subject of the constitution of the orchestra, which was said to be ‘incomplete’ because of the absence of strings (except for the double basses). The unfortunate critic did not know at the time that there is such a thing as un orchestre d’harmonie. It is this orchestre d’harmonie (concert band) which I have chosen for my piano concerto, and not the symphonic orchestra, as an instrumental body more appropriate to the tone of the piano. Strings and piano, a sound scraped and a sound struck, do not sound well together; piano and winds, sounds struck and blown, do." - Keith Brion |
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