concerto

The tradition & historical record

A concerto (; plural concertos, or concerti from the Italian plural) is, since the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typical three-movement structure, a slow movement (e.g., lento or adagio) preceded and followed by fast movements (e.g., presto or allegro), became a standard from the early 18th century. The concerto originated as a genre of vocal music in the late 16th century: the instrumental variant appeared around a century later, when Italians such as Arcangelo Corelli and Giuseppe Torelli started to publish their concertos. A few decades later, Venetian composers, such as Antonio Vivaldi, had written hundreds of violin concertos, while also producing solo concertos for other instruments such as a cello or a woodwind instrument, and concerti grossi for a group of soloists. The first keyboard concertos, such as George Frideric Handel's organ concertos and Johann Sebastian Bach's harpsichord concertos, were written around the same time. In the second half of the 18th century, the piano became the most used keyboard instrument, and composers of the Classical era such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven each wrote several piano concertos, and, to a lesser extent, violin concertos, and concertos for other instruments. ¹

The Italian word concerto, meaning accord or gathering, derives from the Latin verb concertare, which indicates a competition or battle. ¹

Compositions were for the first time indicated as concertos in the title of a music print in 1587, when the Concerti by Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli were published. ¹

In the 17th century, sacred works for voices and orchestra were typically called concertos, as reflected by J. S. Bach's usage of the title "concerto" for many of the works that are now known as cantatas. The term "concerto" was initially used to denote works that involved voices and instruments in which the instruments had independent parts—as opposed to the Renaissance common practice in which instruments that accompanied voices only doubled the voice parts. Examples of this earlier form of concerto include Giovanni Gabrieli's "In Ecclesiis" or Heinrich Schütz's "Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich". ¹

The concerto began to take its modern shape in the late-Baroque period, beginning with the concerto grosso form developed by Arcangelo Corelli. Corelli's concertino group was two violins, a cello and basso continuo. In J. S. Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, for example, the concertino is a flute, a violin, and a harpsichord; although the harpsichord is a featured solo instrument, it also sometimes plays with the ripieno, functioning as a continuo keyboard accompaniment. Later, the concerto approached its modern form, in which the concertino usually reduces to a single solo instrument playing with (or against) an orchestra. The main composers of concertos of the baroque were Tommaso Albinoni, Antonio Vivaldi (e.g., published in L'estro armonico, La stravaganza, Six Violin Concertos, Op. 6, Twelve Concertos, Op. 7, Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, Six Flute Concertos, Op. 10, Six Concertos, Op. 11 and Six Violin Concertos, Op. 12), Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Pietro Locatelli, Jean-Marie Leclair, Giuseppe Tartini, Francesco Geminiani and Johann Joachim Quantz. The concerto was intended as a composition typical of the Italian style of the time, and all the composers were studying how to compose in the Italian fashion (all'Italiana). The Baroque concerto was mainly for a string instrument (violin, viola, cello, occasionally viola d'amore, viola da gamba or harp) or a wind instrument (flute, recorder, oboe, bassoon, horn, or trumpet). Bach also wrote a concerto for two violins and orchestra. ¹

The concertos of the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach, such as C. P. E. Bach, are perhaps the best links between those of the Baroque period and those of the Classical era. It is conventional to state that the first movements of concertos from the Classical period onwards follow the structure of sonata form. Final movements are often in rondo form, as in J.S. Bach's E Major Violin Concerto. Mozart wrote five violin concertos, all in 1775, except the first in 1773. They show a number of influences, notably Italian and Austrian. Several passages have leanings towards folk music, as manifested in Austrian serenades. Mozart also wrote the Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra. Haydn wrote three concertos for violin and above all two for cello. Beethoven wrote only one violin concerto that remained obscure until revealed as a masterpiece in a performance by violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim on 27 May 1844. C.P.E. Bach's keyboard concertos contain some virtuosic solo writing. Some of them have movements that run into one another without a break, and there are frequent cross-movement thematic references. Mozart, as a child, made arrangements for keyboard and orchestra of four sonatas by now little-known composers. Then he arranged three sonata movements by Johann Christian Bach. By the time he was twenty, Mozart was able to write concerto ritornelli that gave the orchestra admirable opportunity for asserting its character in an exposition with some five or six sharply contrasted themes, before the soloist enters to elaborate on the material. Of his 27 piano concertos, the last 17 are highly appreciated. Eleven cataloged keyboard concertos are attributed to Haydn, of which seven are considered genuine. Beethoven wrote five concertos for piano and orchestra. C. P. E. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Concerto”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

concerto is musical composition usually in three parts, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 38 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²