Stravinsky - Concerto for Two Pianos (Audio + Score) (1935)

The Concerto is divided into four movements, even though the third movement is also split up into four different parts. A typical performance of this work should last approximately 20 minutes. The movement titles were originally written in Italian:



I. Con moto
II. Notturno: Adagietto (Nocturne)
III. Quattro variazioni (Four variations):
Variazione I (Variation I)
Variazione II (Variation II)
Variazione III (Variation III)
Variazione IV (Variation IV)
IV. Preludio e fuga (Prelude and fugue)

First movement

The first movement is in a form that recalls a first movement of a sonata, with its tonal regions and its recapitulation; this movement is full of repeated notes and chords, in which its energy and momentum is based. In the central section of this movement, groups of sixteenth notes are grouped in sextuplets repeated in 4/4.


Second movement

The second movement, Notturno, was described by Stravinsky as "not so much night music as after-dinner music, in fact, a digestive to the largest movements", as he also stated that the first piano part was like "a ballerina represented by a harpsichord".


Third movement



The third movement is a collection of variations of a theme that is not present in that movement, but in the fugue of the following movement. These four variations are characterised by having different speeds, melodic lines in different octaves throughout the whole movement; in the last variation, a typical Stravinsky technique (an ostinato in G and B♭, that is, a third interval) is present. In various statements, Stravinsky claims he could have orchestrated this specific movement, but he wanted this composition to remain a composition for two pianos, so that he and his son could play it.


Fourth movement

The fourth and final movement is a slow prelude and a four-voiced fugue, followed by an after-fugue in which the notes of the theme are represented in inversion. Accompanying the four voices, there is one more voice which repeats notes in sextuplets, which is a direct reference to the first movement. It ends with a strongly dissonant fortissimo chord by the two pianos, which is followed by a softer and more consonant chord which closes the concerto, though in 1957 Stravinsky expressed to American pianist Paul Jacobs that he wanted to leave out the softer chord. Stravinsky considered this movement was the one in the whole concerto he was most fond of.