Hi!

I was just wondering if some of you out there have taken the liking to some of the less popular piano concetos. Are there some tresures out there, and are there some you regard as outstanding and wrongfully unpopular.

Pleas tell me which concertos you like and why it you like it!

here is a list of less popular concerts I know are not so popular, maby you like some of them!

Tchaikovsky no. 2 and 3
Hummel (all of them)
John Field
Saint-Sains (all, but no. 2)
Anton Rubinstein
Rimsky-Korsakov
Dvorak
Kristian Sinding
Thomas Tellefsen
Geir Tveitt
Kachkaturian

Personally I like the Saint-Saens no.3 which is probably on of the least preformed Saint-Saens Piano concerto No. 3

I also like the Norwegian composer, and assistant of Chopin, Thomas Tellefsen's concerto no.2 a lot Thomas Tellefsen piano concerto no.2

Sorry for bad English!

I was just listening to Saint-Saens 5 last night, and it was very good.

Not as many people play Rachmaninoff's 4th as they do the first three. I haven't heard Rubenstein's, but I've heard Rimsky-Korsakov's and it was good too.

Dvorak wrote a piano concerto? That's interesting! I'll have to check it out.

Didn't Debussy write some sort piece for piano and orchestra also? I don't know how often that's played.

I like Moscheles' piano concertos.

I've traded the first concerto for the fourth! I can't wait to play it!!!

Concertos which are not preformed are rather amorphous!

I am especially fond of Paderewski's concerto.

I've always loved the Moszkowski concerto. I think it a very fine work, though the last movement doesn't quite measure up to the previous movements.

I really enjoy the Tchaikovsky no. 2, I think it just suffers in comparison to his first.

I also like the Saint-Saëns no. 5, perhaps even more so than the more popular no. 2.

The others you listed I haven't heard.

Rachmaninoff's fourth is wonderful. I haven't listened to it in 20 years, but I can still recall the slow movement's main theme-- that's how catchy it is.

Prokofiev's fourth is also wonderful. It has everything-- a searing toccata, a mischievous scherzo, a vast dramatic slow movement. I'm not sure why it's not more popular.


-J

Ferdinand Ries. Pure awesomeness.

You hear Saint-Saens #5 a bit.

The Shostakovich concertos are not played all that much.

I heard Shosty 1 perfomed about a year and a half ago, and really enjoyed the piece. The orchestra didn't like the guest conductor and it showed a little, but the pianist (and trumpet player) played very well.

How about non-"concerto" works, but still for piano and orchestra? Like, Beethoven Choral Fantasy, Liszt Totentanz, Saint-Saens Africa and Organ Symphony, Debussy Fantasie for Piano and Orchestra, etc...

What do you think of Ginastera's Piano Concerti?

Tchaikovsky's 2nd and 3rd Piano Concertos are splendid pieces: No. 2 especially is breathtakingly exciting.
Dvorak's Piano Concerto is a great favourite of mine, quite unusual and not apparently virtuosic. Like most of Dvorak's music it is beautiful. I have a recording of Sviatoslav Richter playing it.
Rimsky-Korsakoff's is another favourite of mine, short but dramatic.
The Hyperion CD label has a long-running series 'The Romantic Piano Concerto' featuring numerous neglected piano concertos some of which have never before been recorded. I strongly recommend the series to all enthusiasts.

It's a very underrated piece I think, can't understand why it's not played more often.I have this great recording by Rudolf Firkusny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhxN2Td_omQ

I know and like most of the pieces you listed, esp. St.S 3/5 and Dvorak, the latter being one of the most neglected big ones of all times, a worthy companion to the Brahms's.

i love the sharwenka concertos. especially the first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG8QqiK04Wo&feature=related

And there's also the beautiful Ponce concerto which is probably not even performed outside of Mexico, which is a crying shame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjvOcL7KF1E&videos=tYz9PPZwGbg

.

+1

Medtner 1-3, can't believe I'm the first to mention them.
Dussek.
Kabalevsky.

And both Argerich and Kissin have recorded it, so it's kinda sorta well known, just because of them.



And the d'Indy Symphony on a French Mountain Air, Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain, Martin's Ballade, and Stravinsky's Capriccio, all of which are wonderful. There are some concertinos I like, too, by Janacek, Francaix, and Roussel.



I love the first one, with its "Bartok meets the Second Viennese School in Buenos Aires" brand of hyper-expressive dynamism. The second one really needs a decent recording - I just can't make anything out of it from the dreary Naxos recording (which I think is the only one), so I really don't know whether it the recording or the piece or both that doesn't leave much of an impression. But I am guessing, based on the equally dull performance of the first, that it is the recording, and not the piece.

I wonder if Argerich is still thinking about playing the first, as she was once scheduled to do.

What about Ligeti's piano concerto? It would seem that Aimard is its only champion.

Vincent Persichetti's Piano Concerto. Dello Joio's Fantasy and Variations.

they are popular with me, so I didn't mention them..

I got the score and learning the Geirr Tveitt 1st Piano Concerto in my own time. It is pretty awesome!

It's so cool that you are learning this concerto, it's so beautiful, and all the movements are great. the first and last have so beautiful melodies, and the middle movement is so fun. hope to learn it myself some day!

Took me forever to find the score for it. Eventually someone on here helped me track down where to find it.

Roger Sessions and Willem Pjiper concertos.

How on earth do you know about Willem Pijper?

Maybe the same way I do, through a recording of the piece.

Another concerto that is little known but worthwhile is the Stenhammer 2nd. It is big, late Romantic work which would probably would be in many pianists' repertoire if only the composer were better known (his string quartets and some other things are very fine, too, BTW).

Some other good ones not mentioned yet: ones by Chavez, Jolivet, Sculthorpe, Hahn, Mennin, (Boris) Tchaikovsky, Shchedrin, Adams, and Norgard.

Anyone heard of Vladiguerov? I would like to learn more of him. Maybe a concerto =)

I remember that one music writer nominated one of them as the worst concerto ever written. The ones I have heard are incredibly silly nonsense that are badly put together and blatantly derivative. But they can be loads of fun anyway, simply because they are so high-spirited and sort of goofy. Also, here's an odd bit of trivia: Herbert von Karajan played the third as his conservatory graduation piece.