Concertino per l’amicizia (2025)

Composer note
Concertino per l’amicizia (“Little Concerto for Friendship”) for Piano and Orchestra (2025) is the result of a commission from my friend and colleague Hélène Wickett for a premiere performance with Symphony Parnassus in San Francisco, Stephen Paulson, Music Director. Wickett and I met in Paris as students of Nadia Boulanger. She has commissioned and premiered my Estampie (1981) and Fantasia Lussuriosa (1989) and premiered Aspen Sketches (1992), all for piano solo.

My previous three piano concertos were early works, written in what I call my “angst-ridden, serious-youngman” style. During that period, Boulanger told me that I would only be half a composer until I learned to bring into my music the love of laughter that she saw in me as a person. Six comic operas later, I have learned that, as Oscar Wilde put it, “Life is too important to be taken seriously.” My present musical language creates a post-modern synthesis of traditional tonality, the lyricism of the Second Viennese School and the octatonic scale of alternating half steps and whole steps that Stravinsky favored in The Rite of Spring. In this Concertino, I combine these techniques in a light-hearted divertimento consisting of three programmatic movements. In the first and third movements, an alto saxophone plays an accompanying role to the solo piano, in a relationship much like that of the viola as a side-kick to the solo cello in Strauss’ Don Quixote.

The work opens with a playful march theme from my third piano trio, Sor(tri)lège (2007). The title, “Magie de Cabaret,” evokes magic performed in a cabaret, not just onstage, but also in a more intimate setting, with the magician moving from table to table. The irregular rhythms and pungent harmonies of today blend with the smoky cabaret atmosphere of Kurt Weill’s Berlin with hints of Edith Piaf’s Paris. There is “travelling music” as the magician makes his rounds, doing tricks, and, from time to time, he pauses for an affettuoso interlude to linger with an attractive lady in the audience. During the last interlude, the music becomes more intense, and the piano breaks into a rhapsodic cadenza. When the magician returns to center stage for his pièce de résistance, he mysteriously conjures up a grand quodlibet, with all of the themes played at once. Then, he takes a seductive look back to his favorite and exits with a wink.

The second movement, “Fulfilling Angel” is based on an image by Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879-1940). The original German title is Ein Genius serviert ein kleines Frühstück (“A guardian angel serves a little breakfast”). It shows an angel with a prominent heart symbol and wings, carrying a tray of goodies. The dedication is to my wife, Darlene, and, for the main theme, I have used the musical pitches that spell her nickname: “B-E-D-E.” The opening themes are sweetly lyrical (Adagio affettuoso); then, a development section violently explodes (Subito veloce, agitato molto). The disturbance could be interpreted as an urgent cry for help in an emergency. The music suddenly becomes distorted, with faster note values, dissonant clashes, irregular rhythms and the juxtaposition of wildly disparate textures, registers and textures. A sense of desperation sets in, but, even in the struggle, there are more and more flashes of hope as a solution is sought and, eventually, found. After the panic settles, there is relief; and, at the end, we again hear the sweet opening themes, now restored to a state of blissful, tonal peace.

The short finale features a rumba theme from the last movement of my 2001 Gambits, six pieces inspired by the game of chess. The original is scored for horn and piano, hence the prominent use here of both instruments. The title, “Copa Capablanca,” combines the names of the Cuban chess master José Raúl Capablanca and the glamorous New York nightclub, Copacabana, which was named after a fashionable Brazilian beach. Slinky melodies and syncopated Latin rhythms create a high-spirited and increasingly tipsy atmosphere of “the beautiful people at play.” As the piece develops, the counterpoint grows more complex, and there are battling, lightning-round chess-like variations and combinations in which layers of rumba, samba and salsa alternate and, at the end, intertwine in a festive musical layer cake.

— Robert Xavier Rodríguez