# Soviet Piano Concerti Still Played?



## LvB (Nov 21, 2008)

Plenty of music by Soviet composers is still performed frequently, but this appears not to be the case with piano concerti. I can think of only three: Shostakovich's (2) and Khatchaturian's. By 'performed' I'm referring to being heard reasonably often in live concerts, not recordings. I'm not including concerti which happened to be written shortly after the Revolution by composers who cannot be considered Soviet in any other sense (if any such exist), or ones written outside the Soviet Union by composers, even Russian ones, who later lived there (I'm thinking Prokofiev here; all of his piano concerto predate his return to living in the Soviet Union in 1936).

Can anyone suggest others?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Schnittke's for piano and strings, and sometimes a bit by Shchedrin (who's done tours).

There are of course many others, less played.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

The Shostakovich concertos get played but they are fairly lightweight works. The Schnittke concerto should be played more! I'm not sure it is Soviet but it is great! The one for four hands, also. I don't think I know any others.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Some further ones are those by 
Mosolov, Gubaidulina, Ustvolskaya, Kabalevsky, Nosyrev, Lyatoshinsky, Lyudkevich, Khrennikov, Galynin, Glonti, Peiko, Taktakishvili, Machavariani, Boris Tchaikovsky, Ivanovs, Golubev, Balanchivadze, Tsintsadze, Svetlanov, Rakov, Rääts, Nikolayeva, some-other-female-composer-whose-name-I-temporarily-forgot, etc.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I think you're right - but don't limit it to Soviet composers; there are hardly any piano concertos by anyone in any country written in the last 2/3 of the 20th c that are played very often. Perhaps orchestras would like to play some, but I imagine the issue is finding pianists who want to spend the time learning some of the music knowing they may only play it once or twice. And some modern writing for the piano is very, very ungrateful to play. 19th c composers who wrote piano concertos knew how to write effectively for the instrument, make it sound well, and didn't cause hand issues with god-awful demands. But even that wasn't enough. If people think the orchestral repertoire is calcified and repetitive, it's even worse in the piano concerto arena. Over and over it's Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Grieg, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and not much else. Even the Mendelssohn concerti are ignored, and the Saint-Saens 2nd is played to excess while the other four languish.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Probably so. Chopin, Bartok, Ravel, and to some extent Gershwin (_Rhapsody in Blue_), De Falla, Schönberg and Stravinsky could of course also be mentioned among those more frequently performed ...


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> Gubaidulina


I wish the "Introitus" would be performed and recorded more often.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Agree, it's certainly one of the more creative, non-conformist works there.

EDIT: btw, I forgot Denisov's, likewise far from the Shostakovich style and rather modernist.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

joen_cph said:


> Probably so. Chopin, Bartok, Ravel, and to some extent Gershwin (_Rhapsody in Blue_), De Falla, Schönberg and Stravinsky could of course also be mentioned among those more frequently performed ...


I wish dearly that the piano-orchestra works of de Falla were played more often - but in 50 years of going to concerts I have yet to hear one of them live. Gershwin is pretty common as is the Ravel. Bartok? Like Falla, I've never encountered any piano concerto live, much to my dismay. Chopin certainly I've heard, even conducted the 2nd. I did catch the Schoenberg live, once, when it was stupidly placed on the 2nd half of the concert and half the audience fled during intermission!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mbhaub said:


> I wish dearly that the piano-orchestra works of de Falla were played more often - but in 50 years of going to concerts I have yet to hear one of them live.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but de Falla's music is a bit short on piano/orchestra compositions. Nights in the Gardens of Spain is almost alone, and it certainly gets plenty of recordings. The only other work that's even close is his harpsichord concerto, which is really a chamber work (six instruments total) and never, SFAIK, played by full orchestra or on the piano.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> I wish dearly that the piano-orchestra works of de Falla were played more often - but in 50 years of going to concerts I have yet to hear one of them live. Gershwin is pretty common as is the Ravel. Bartok? Like Falla, I've never encountered any piano concerto live, much to my dismay. Chopin certainly I've heard, even conducted the 2nd. I did catch the Schoenberg live, once, when it was stupidly placed on the 2nd half of the concert and half the audience fled during intermission!


Obviously there's a difference between continents or regions as regards concert life - like you'll have more performances by various US composers. Those concertos must be more common in Europe or parts thereof, then.

Here's a couple of programmes for one of our main orchestras, DRSO

https://drkoncerthuset.dk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DRSO_2018_issue.pdf

https://issuu.com/drkoncerthuset/docs/s_sonbrochure_2019-20?e=18651347/67531340

Oncoming season includes the Scandinavian premiere of Ades' piano concerto, btw, and two Mozart concertos, one Ravel concerto, and Tchaikovsky's 1st.

Past season was quite rich in piano concertos and included Beethoven's 3rd, 4th & 5th, Mozart's 20th & K365, Liszt 2nd, Brahms 1st & 2nd.

Here's also a programme from Aarhus SO. Includes
Prokofiev's 1st, Beethoven's 2nd, Mozart's 24th, S-Saen's 5th, a premiere of Simon Steen Andersen's, Rachmaninov's 2nd, N.W. Gade's rare _Frühlings-Phantasie_.


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