Concerto no. 1 for 2 Pianos, String Orchestra and Percussion

As in all my compositions, this work is about extraordinary personal encounters, formative emotional events and essential, life-changing circumstances, the initial ignition, motive and motor to write a new diary note "in tones". The first sketches for the CONCERTO were made in August 2015, so the entire period of the concert's creation spans two and a half years.

The work is arranged in 4 movements and is complemented by an interlude – homage to Franz Liszt – between the first and second movements, which is both programmatic and formal a large replay for 2 pianos solo to the first movement.

The first movement with the emotional title "From the Earth" is monothematically structured – entirely in Liszt's tradition – and processes the basic musical idea as a toccata, fugue and in the form of a large-scale harmonically varying cadence. At the end of the movement, the starting key in F minor ends in Des major, the original key of Liszt's  Consolation No.4, which forms the basis for the subsequent interlude.

The main theme of the second movement is an extremely  cantable,instrumental idea, which can be described in Mendelssohn's sense as a "song without words". This is
initiated by the instrumental prelude of my song "What I Wish" (Text: Peter Turrrini) from 2016. The "minimal-music"-like middle section puts the solo violin in dialogue
with the vibraphone.

In the third movement, I quote and transcribe another of my own "Turrini songs" entitled "At the End of Grief and Wrath" over a longer period of time. In the recitatives, the two
pianos enter into dialogue with vibraphone and percussion and are formally framed by a waltz at the beginning and end of the movement.

The rhythmic-virtuoso 4th movement leaves room for improvisational elements in both the piano and percussion and, in its original form, bears the emotiona title "Katzenhüpfer". In this form and under this title I have already used the theme in my work "Heartbeat". My daughter Miriam made this theme and his cheerful title available to me at a very young age. Thank you!

(Eduard Kutrowatz)