Concerto

Written in Leeds for the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundaiton in the Library of Congress and dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky, my concerto was the second work I wrote for Daniel Barenboim who gave its first performance in Brighton and London in 1972 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Laurence Foster.

Like the Symphony of three years earlier, the concerto is based on a melody, this time more classical in shape and opening with a fanfare, given to the oboe at the outset. But now the variation technique which was my principle means of creating large form in those years is combined with a look again at concerto-sonata form, with double exposition, extended development and recapitulation.

The Introduction to the second movement takes up an idea first stated by piano solo, just prior to the end of the first movement. Here is an attempt to combine slow movement and fugato fast music into one single structure which implies an hommage to its rather obvious Beethovenian model.

The small, rather classical orchestra in spirit substitutes trumpets and tuba for the more conventional horns. The choice of instruments was determined by a particular dense harmonic character which at the time seemed to me to be bright and sunlit.

Alexander Goehr