The nineteenth-century piano concerto

Abstract

The piano concerto manifests a remarkable expansion during the nineteenth century in terms of the number of composers writing works in the form, and in the basic parameters of the genre itself; that is, the number of movements, size of the individual sections, instrumentation of the orchestra, and the technical demands placed on the soloist. The piano concerto is the most high-profile subspecies of the genre at this time. This chapter will investigate issues such as compositional responses to Mozart, and then Beethoven, the role of virtuosity, structural developments in the form, symphonic dimensions, and programmatic aspects of individual works. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, composers continued to exploit the possibilities inherent in the piano concerto genre as codified by Mozart, whose twenty-three original concertos had all been published by 1806. A study of almost any concerto composed during the first third of the nineteenth century (and considerably later as well) reveals the profound influence of these works. Mozart's concertos were performed by nearly every composer in the early nineteenth century (as Beethoven's would be later in the century), creating a tradition which, of course, continues to this day. The nineteenth century also saw a dramatic increase in the number of municipal concert venues and music festivals associated with the rise of the middle class in the wake of the industrial revolution, in combination with the existing venues belonging to the nobility, cities, states and countries.