Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major

The second of Liszt’s two piano concertos was first performed in Weimar in 1857. Nine years earlier, Liszt had settled there to direct the town’s Court Orchestra; he was now content to distance himself from his spectacular earlier career as the greatest virtuoso pianist of his day, so he could concentrate more on composing. For the Second Concerto’s premiere, he therefore entrusted the solo piano part to one of his pupils, Hans Bronsart von Schellendorff, while he himself conducted the orchestra. In a radical departure from the classical concerto’s established three-movement design, Liszt’s Second Concerto is structured in a continuous single movement. The various sections of this, fast or slow, all derive from two ideas heard at the work’s beginning: These are a slow, richly harmonised theme presented by the orchestral woodwind, with the piano quietly joining in, and then a brusque contrasting march-like section. Both ideas are then varied and extended, exploring a remarkable range of sounds and moods during the musical sequence that follows.