Toby Stanford 2051

Appraisal for A Second Movement from a Piano Concerto in C# Minor"

I set out to compose a slow movement for piano and orchestra, more specifically
the second movement from a piano concerto. Having listened to numerous piano
concertos and other orchestral pieces, such as Rachmaninoff's Second Piano
Concerto, Mendelssohn's first, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and Dvorak's New
World Symphony, I was greatly influenced as to how the movement would come
out. For example, the very beginning of the piece starts with almost homophonic
strings and horn before the piano enters with the first theme, which is very similar
to the opening of the second movement in Rachmaninoffs second piano concerto,
the first four bars of which begin with homophonic strings and some woodwind, and
parallels of this can also be draw with the beginning of the New World Symphony.
Furthermore, the left hand of the piano adopts a technique often used by
Mendelssohn, especially in his first Piano Concerto and Rondo Capricisiosso in E
major, of an ostinato low octave followed by three quaver chords (evident from bars
5-16 of my piece). Other aspects of this composition have been influenced by pieces
I have listened too: for example, the syncopated rhythm which begins in the horns
in bar 11 is derived from the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto in D Minor,
KV 466 and the last movement of Symphonie Fantastique, and the idea of the piano
accompanying the orchestra rather than the orchestra accompanying the piano
which takes place from bar 23-30, which occurs in the first movement of
Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto (the piano plays flourishes on a chord whilst
the violins play the melody, in the very beginning of the movement).

When I began writing this piece, I first worked out the chord sequences and the
melody for the first section at the piano, and wrote out the piano part first.
Subsequently, I went to Sibelius and wrote the skeleton of a string accompaniment
and a four-bar introduction with the horn, and then went back to the piano to write
the string and woodwind countermelodies, such as the suspensions in bar 15. The
same goes for the final 4 bars, which is just a recapitulation of the first theme with
variation in the woodwind and strings. I approached the middle section, however,
with a more technical approach. Instead of writing a melody and then harmonizing
it, I instead worked out a sequence of chords at the piano (Emajsus2, Amaj7,
dim7/A, Emajsus2, Eminsus2, D#augsus2, D#minsus4, C#major6, Amin7sus4,
Amin7, Amaj7, Bmaj6) and wrote the cello solo melody later to fit with this.
Originally, the piano part contained the flourishes on the chord and the triplet
figuration, but this proved to be too ostentatious when played in the bass part of
the piano so I decided to transfer it to the pizzicato violin part, thus allowing the
cello melody to clearly be the main theme. The counter melodies which occur
mainly in the flute part but also the clarinet part in bars 21-22 I also worked out at
the piano, seeing which melodic lines fit with the chord structure whilst remaining
as subtle as possible.

Once the notes were down on the page, I assembled a quasi-orchestra (one
instrument per part) and we ran through the piece. Hearing it played live on real
Toby Stanford 2051

instruments rather than on Sibelius was very eye-opening, and identified to me a

few problematic harmonies and some of the instrumental parts which were awkward
to play. For example, the 1st violin part in bar 14 proved difficult due to some leaps
of ninths which weren't conducive to the violin, so I changed them to leaps of
seconds instead. Possibly the most important result of the live performance was
discovering where dynamics and phrasing should be put in, and which ones. Before
the performance, the first four-bar introduction was merely pianissimo throughout,
but when we played it as an ensemble we found that we were playing a natural
swell in this part of the piece, so I put in a crescendo followed by a diminuendo,
climaxing at the G sharp in the horn. Phrasing, particularly in the cello's solo melody
in the middle section, was inputted in a similar fashion, listening to how the cellist
naturally phrased the musical line and then putting in the slurs and phrase marks
accordingly. This, in fact, is true of all parts, as in bars 17 and 18 I found that the
clarinetist, oboist and flautist each put a slur on their first two notes, and as I liked
this sound I inputted the appropriate marking.

To conclude, in order to fulfil my self-determined brief of writing a slow second

movement of a piano concerto I listened to many appropriate pieces, sketched
down my original ideas and then, once I'd got an orchestra together, put in all the
nuances such as dynamic marking, phrasing and slurs.