Concerto for Orchestra
(1967)
Duration: 23'
3(pic).2+ca.2+bcl.2+cbn/4331/timp.3perc/hp/str
Commissioned by the Feeney Trust

World Premiere:  8 March, 1968, Royal Festival Hall, London
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra,
Hugo Rignold, conductor

U.S. Premiere:  1976
Philadelphia Orchestra
conducted by the composer

Publisher:  Chester Music Ltd

Critical Acclaim:

...an originally constructed and beautifully scored one-movement work...the BBC Symphony Orchestra rose to its demands — some of them literally as when Jack Brymer stood up with his subversively brilliant clarinet to instigate a sort of cadenza-revolt among a group of concertante sololists. The ensuing struggle is dramatic and resolved in musical terms that are perfectly satisfying
— Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Sunday Times (London)

...The climax of the piece comes when the clarinet leads a kind of revolt against the order and restriction of normal metrical flow. In that remarkable section, the solo instruments rise one by one to play music that is notated but is placed freely against the more strict writing for the strings...a kind of playing an orchestra does not often see — free, open to individual expressions of each player, dependent on each player's fantasy for its success...The final section with that clarinet rebellion in full swing, was gripping in its excitement. Clearly the players were involved in the possibilities.

Revolt does not imply anarchy, and the music had the satisfaction of a recognizable form and the pleasure of masterful orchestration. The work celebrates the orchestra and the vitality of its players.
— Daniel Webster, Philadelphia Inquirer

Composer's Note:

The concerto is one of a series of works in which I have been preoccupied with the search for "vivid dramatic forms for abstract music." This has led me to explore the possibilities of sometimes freeing the vertical aspect of the music from the rigid control of the barline or even on occasion from the conductor's beat without losing control of the overall musical content, so that whatever the arbitrary musical coincidence, the harmonic sense is always clear.

Besides being a virtuoso work for the orchestra, this is also a 'concerto' in the more usual sense of a conflict between solo and 'tutti.' This conflict is muted at first, becoming more intense as the tempo increases throughout the work, and ending with a fierce musical confrontation. Through the first three sections varying solo elements unfold and eventually weave into the beginnings of a full orchestral tutti, dramatically interrupted at its first climax by the solo clarinet who stands up, and during the course of a wild and uninhibited cadenza, incites other instruments to join in. Despite several outbursts by the tutti orchestra, the clarinet gradually enlarges his concertante group, spurring it on to ever more frenzied activity. As the soloists reach a climax of complexity the tutti orchestra starts to regain control and finally submerges the rebellious elements as it moves into the final presto.

Recording:

Concerto for orchestra
Scottish National Orchestra
Alexander Gibson, conductor
LP Decca HEAD 8

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