The Large-Scale Formal Role of the Solo Entry Theme in the Eighteenth-Century Concerto

Abstract

ily related to other material in the work. It is operatic, but neither a true recitatif nor a 'scena.' The best that words can do is perhaps say that the introduction provides a limpid pool of solo piano tone between two noisy bouts of orchestral texture ... the piano is presented in its most frail and feminine role, apparently unequal to the might of its partner.... it is not too fanciful to say [however] that the piano's gradual ascent to supremacy begins at the start of the solo, and the smallness of the start makes its final supremacy in the piano climax [the brilliant theme ending with a cadential trill that ends the outer solo sections of the form] all the more impressive (65-66).