Frederick Delius - Piano Concerto in C minor

- Composer: Frederick Theodore Albert Delius (29 January 1862 -- 10 June 1934)
- Orchestra: BBC Symphony Orchestra
- Conductor: Sir John Pritchard
- Soloist: Clifford Curzon
- Year of recording: 1981

Piano Concerto in C minor, RT vii/4, written and revised between 1897-1907.

00:00 - I. Allegro non troppo
11:12 - II. Largo
16:40 - III. Tempo primo

This inspired but seldom performed work was originally written between 1897-1904, in a conventional piano concerto format, but when it was revised in 1907 Delius dropped the third movement in favor of a new movement which is in fact a re-statement of the themes of the first two movements.

- The first movement, greatly influenced by Grieg, is filled with typical gestures - crashing chords, scale runs, broken octaves, etc. - but introduces some strong thematic material - a peculiar forte theme built of descending chromatic phrases, and an interesting secondary theme in running triplets.
- However, when we get to the second movement, the sound of the Delius of the later years starts to shine forth (after an almost sentimental start), and beautiful transcendent textures built on simple melodies start to appear, together with breathtaking, sweeping orchestral passages filled with high strings and rich brass colors like Richard Strauss. Delius' particular sense of modal harmony, akin to but different from Grieg's, provides many surprises.
- At the end, we realize that the "concerto" has instead been in the form of an English "fantasy" - for example, passages that seem to be concluding lead to soft solos in another key, the piano is suddenly accompaniment to solo violin or to a group of unison cellos, the strings descend in soft shimmers in the middle of a piano solo - the "form" is a poetic wandering.

A consultation with the Hungarian pianist Theodor Szántó, a pupil of Ferruccio Busoni, led to very substantial revisions in the solo part. The first performance of this version was played by Szántó, at a Prom Concert in London on 22 October 1907, under Henry Wood. Szántó received the dedication of the work.