Piano Concerto

Abstract

The dissertation consists of a Piano Concerto, written for first performance in Fall 2008 by Blair McMillen, piano, and the Raleigh Civic Symphony conducted by Randolph Foy. The three movement work is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets in B-flat, bass clarinet in B-flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in C, 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, 3 percussionists, strings, and piano solo. The work is approximately twenty minutes in duration. The first movement, "Fantod," employs a neo-Romantic idiom, featuring the soloist as both aggressive virtuoso and as a subtle residual resonance which emerges from the orchestral texture. The second movement, "Lament," serves as a simple, pensive, and sorrowful aftermath to the frenzied first movement. In the third movement, "Rondoburlesque," the mood of the work becomes considerably more lighthearted, and moments of the first two movements are caricatured. The Concerto's harmonic and melodic organization derives from a set theoretical design. The first movement uses the harmonic minor scale and its inversion, the second movement uses the melodic minor scale, and the last movement uses the natural minor scale (the major scale). Important and unique subsets of these scales are used to provide both contrast and interrelatedness between movements. In particular, the main melodic theme of the first movement returns at the end of the last movement.