Are you looking for a friendly challenge? Keen amateurs and seasoned professionals alike enjoy piano concertos, of all difficulty levels, which stretch the pianist to their limits. Either accompanying, or leading the musical themes, the orchestra adds a wide gambit of colour, and compliments and supports the soloist, creating a rich, homogenous sound world. Take a look through the Stretta-Shop today, and pick the perfect concerto for you.
The first piano concertos were written for solo piano with a small string ensemble in the early Baroque Period, and soon grew through the late Baroque and Classical Periods to be with larger ensembles and eventually full orchestra. Through the Romantic Period the concerto form was extended and developed to include other instruments and ensembles, like Beethoven’s Fantasie c-Moll op. 80, which is for Piano, Mixed Choir, Solo Voices (SATB) and Orchestra, and all these parts are often dealt with as individual, solo units. In the twentieth century, it became popular to write concertos for four hands, or two pianos, such as Michael Nyman, Malcom Arnold & Nino Rota.