I'm very familiar with all four of Rachmaninoff's, Geshwin's in F, and Tchaikovsky's first. I'm not very familiar with many others. Which would you recommend that I hear?

Here is what comes to mind:

Bartok #s 2 &3
Corigliano
Liebermann 2
Brahms 1,2
Beethoven 1-5
Scriabin
Medtner 1,2
Bortkiewicz 1-3
Prokofiev Nos. 2 &3
Ravel LH
Schumann
Lutoslawski
Schoenberg
Mozart: Assorted

Don't forget the Grieg(!). The opening is iconic and it's a beautiful piece.

Also Mendelssohn (1 is most popular)

Don't forget the Grieg(!). The opening is iconic and it's a beautiful piece.

Also Mendelssohn (1 is most popular)

Chopin's concertos are great too

i woudl also add arensky op.2 and ravel's first piano concerto

Zac

Beethoven 5 (Emperor)
Prokofiev 2
Liszt (Totentanz)

If you like those of Mozart and Chopin, you'll love Hummel Op. 85 and Op. 89.

Steven

In addition to others mentioned, Brahms. #2 in particular is a masterwork.

And don't neglect Saint-Saens. Nos. 2 and 4 are most frequently played.

Thank you for all your suggestions.
Gonna spend a lot of time on YouTube.

Shostakovich 2 has a gorgeous slow movement, hauntingly beautiful.

Rachmaninov 1,2,3 are also great.

Beethoven's Choral Fantasie has a prominent role for the piano.

I love the Bach keyboard concertos, esp. the first with Gould.

If you are daring, try Schnittke's concerto for piano and strings. It's basically tonal, very dark and rich and satisfying, but has a lot of that modern clang.

The less-known Rimsky Korakov Concerto (in c-sharp minor) is gorgeous!

The less-known Rimsky-Korsakov Concerto (in c-sharp minor) is gorgeous!

Stanford #1, #2, Napravnik, Emil Hartmann (epecially the second movement). I doubt you'll find these on YouTube, but if you hunt around you'll find excerpts on Amazon and other places.

Seconds the Shostakovich 2 slow movement, very beautiful. Unfortunately, I never cared for the rest of the concerto.

Shostakovich's 1st (for Piano Trumpet and Orchestra) is also great. What a riot, especially the final movement.

Haydn's D Major is also a great concerto. No Rachmaninov or Brahms, but still great.

For Mozart, of course there's no. 20 & 21. They're over-performed and over-recorded for a reason after all! No 9, 23, and 26 are some of the other popular "greats."

Happy Listening!

Daniel

SCARWENKA!

All four.

I would like to add tveitt piano concertos

Since all the regulars have been listed, I would like to share Manuel M. Ponce's Concierto Romantico.

Here's the youtube link for the first mvt:

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

Seriously? 1 and 4 perhaps, and 2 has some terrific moments, but the last mov't of 3 is unbelievably weak. What was old Xavier ?

I'm surprised that the Concertos of Saint-Saens haven't been mentioned yet. Number 2 certainly still appears in the concert hall, even if not as frequently as it once did.
The two MacDowell concertos are also worth getting to know, as is the concerto by Moszkowski.
Dvorak's Piano Concerto, though problematical, is too lovely to be overlooked.

Apologies for my previous post...the Saint-Saens concertos have been mentioned, so I'll substitute the splendid "Romantic" Concerto by Joseph Marx instead.

I happened to catch the old Van Cliburn recording of the MacDowell D minor on the radio the other day- what a blistering perfomance! The Moszkowski is very fine, though I wonder if its infrequency in the concert hall is partly related to its difficulty, not to mention the sheer amount of notes!

The Dvorak is problematical, yes, but let's not get into that one...

Stravinsky's Concerto, Concerto for 2 solo pianos, and his Capriccio. Also Poulenc's Concerto for 2 pianos.

It's always nice to hear the MacDowell after not hearing it for a long time. Saint Saens is easily forgotten for some reason, but his concertos are very good, too.

On my current play list, I have Chopin's No. 1 (really like 2nd and 3rd movement) and Beethoven's No. 4 (love the opening of the 1st movement I am actually going to see a concert solo by Helene Grimaud next month!)

My all-time favorite is still Rachmaninoff's No. 2.

TinyHands

The Dvorak is worth hearing, but not worth playing, IMHO. Besides that, the harmonic progressions of the slow movement immediately throw me off balance and I can't stand it. Then there's the infamous piano writing, which even the unauthorized revisions didn't completely fix.

MacDowell's effort is similarly worth hearing a few times, but not playing.

What do you think of the Henselt concerto?

Rather fond of it myself. Terribly difficult of course, and that's certainly one reason why it's not encountered in the concert hall.

Has anyone ever heard it live?

I would add a few.

Rubinstein's 4th concerto
Paderewski
And as mentioned before, Moszkowski.

Those are all very enjoyable concertos imo.

Thought of a few more,
Mendelssohn, which has already been mentioned, but I prefer the second one to the first one any day.
Stowjoski's piano concertos
Dohanyi(sp?)
I enjoy the Herz piano concertos but not sure if anyone else does.
There are a few by Moschelles that are enjoyable, though honestly don't understand why some of them are part of the romantic piano concerto cd line. Sound a lot like Mozart to me!

Nino Rota's first piano concerto is amazing in my opinion. His second one sounds to much like Rachmaninov but his first one is pretty awesome. Second movement sounds a lot like the stuff he did for the Godfather.

Reminds me that Miklos Rosza wrote a very fine piano concerto for, I believe, Leonard Pennario. Heard a recording of it on the radio once...

I think that the Bartok Rhapsody Op. 1 deserves some love (if you can call dominating the keyboard for it love- which I would, for the record.)

Thanks for noticing!! I love the Saint-Saens pieces. French Mendelssohn.

I love the Henselt, too. The cantabile misterioso episode in the slow movement is lovely, and the finale reminds me of the finale of Chopin's Sonata Op. 58.

Steven

Well, if everybody pianist thought the same way about the Dvorak Concerto no one would get a chance to hear it! The composer, apparently, intended to revise the awkward piano writing himself, but never got round to it. The published revision by Vilem Kurz is certainly more effective pianistically. Others who performed the work, like Rudolph Firkusny and Franz Reizenstein made their own adaptations although, nowadays, many pianists choose to stick to Dvorak's original version.
As for the Macdowell, I have performed the 2nd Concerto on three occasions so can't agree that it's not worth doing. I've never had the opportunity to play the 1st Concerto but like it very much.
I have played the Moszkowski twice. It's certainly difficult but beautifully written for the instrument. The orchestral accompaniment is not particularly demanding and can be managed by competent amateur players. Perhaps more pianists should take it up.
The Henselt Concerto, like the Dvorak, sets a big problem for certain players. Wasn't it Anton Rubinstein who gave up working on it because he thought that the writing was based on an abnormal formation of the hand? I believe that Claudio Arrau played the piece in his youth.
Like many of the concertos of the period it's something that I enjoy listening to now and then without it making a sufficient impression upon me to want to return to it frequently.

Alkan's Concerto for solo Piano (if it applies to this thread)

Why Bartók's #2 & 3 and not # 1 ?

Britten surely deserves to be mentioned in a thread like this!

Aye, Britten wrote a very fine concerto. Also worthy of mention here is Young Apollo for piano and strings. Britten subsequently withdrew this early work and it wasn't revived until the '80's.

There's no consensus about Young Apollo's place in the Britten canon, but I love the work and find it irresistibly thrilling. Such athletic virtuosity!

My score has both versions of the piano part, and the Supraphon recording has Kvapil (a pianist otherwise unknownst to me) playing the original and Moravec playing the Kurz rewrite.

Moravec, unsurprisingly, plays it beautifully and almost convinces one that the Kurz should be used! Whist I won't make that claim, the original certainly has a folkish charm with piano writing similar to that in the chamber works. And yet... there are several moments wherein Kurz is simply more effective, making Dvorak's original all the more frustrating. I want my cake and eat it too.
I agree with you about the D minor. The A minor by comparison is utterly conventional, with a very predictable -yet competant- handling of themes and development.

What saves the concerto, and makes it worthy of occasional revival, is the high quality of MacDowell's material. That concerto is full of great tunes! Who can resist the secondary theme in the first movement, to name one instance?
I believe it was Henselt's concerto plus the Op. 2 etudes which put Rubinstein over the brink.

Arrau talked about playing and recording the Henselt in later years, but obviously got bogged down with other projects. Such a pity nothing came of it all! He would have played that concerto superbly, far better than Lewenthal or Ponti. At least Hamelin was finally worth the wait.

The first Supraphon recording (of the Kurz revision) was made by Frantisek Maxian with Vaclav Talich conducting. Radoslav Kvapil recorded all of Dvorak's solo piano music for Supraphon. I have the Moravec recording but it's a while since I played it. If anyone had asked me earlier I would have said that he played a version that incorporated most of Kurz's revisions but reverted to the original score in places. I shall have to listen to it again while following the score to see if I have remembered the details wrongly.
The ubiquitous Michael Ponti also recorded the work but made a substantial cut in the first movement.
The first performance of the concerto in Britain appears to have been given by Harriet Cohen... she admitted that, because of her tiny hands, she had to re-write the piano part substantially.

Agreed. And the Poulenc single piano Concerto is a wonderful charmer, too, if you're in the mood for it. Also found under "P", the Prokofiev 5th is wonderful. As is the little-known Persichetti, which is one of the better products of mid-century American modern and has a decent recording on New World Records.

But there huge number of concertos worth hearing - I get the idea that many composers really put some of their best efforts into the form. Here are a few more I think haven't been mentioned that I like a lot:

Stenhammer 2nd (in the Solyom recording, especially)
Chavez
John Adams "Century Rolls"
Lou Harrison
Ginastera 1st
Lutoslawski
Ligeti
Blacher 1st, 2nd, and the Clementi Variations
Szymanowksi Symphonie Concertante (Sym. 4)
Francaix

We're playing Ravel's G Major Concerto in my youth orchestra this year.

It's a tad easy, and admittedly there are some parts I dislike, but it has grown on me.

I heard a Nicolae Medtner piano concerto on my local classical radio station once, but the opus #
eludes me. I enjoyed hearing it immensely, as I like Medtner and wish that his music was played more widely than it is. Seems like it was in one movt. only, or something odd like that.

There are three, and all are enjoyable. I think the one that is officially in one movement is the first, but the third doesn't really have breaks between movements either, if I remember correctly.

Thanks for the info, I'll see if I can find them anywhere.

Medtner's piano concerti are all on IMSLP :

Op. 33 in C minor

Op. 50 in C minor

Op. 60 in E minor

Unfortunately the 2nd and 3rd concertos are Non-PD US and Non-PD EU.

1. Chopin's second piano cto in f min.
2. Beethovens Choral fantasy in c minor. (Maybe his greatest
work, but not played often.)
3. Beethoven's 5th pno concerto (Eb, I believe) "The
Emperor Concerto", really a great work, also.