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Published: Tuesday, 03 December 2024 at 09:30 AM
The 7 greatest piano concertos inspired by jazz
Read on to discover the best piano concertos inspired by jazz, as chosen by pianist Frank Dupree…
George Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue/Piano Concerto in F
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is the reason I fell in love with jazz. I played it for the first time when I was 13, and I still remember the feeling of those blue notes in my fingers: part sweet, part cheeky. Gershwin was the first person to bring the worlds of jazz and classical music together, and Rhapsody in Blue is one of his best-known pieces. But I see it as a rehearsal for his Piano Concerto in F, another jazz-infused work which he wrote a year later, and which I think is an even better piece: more symphonic, clearer in form and altogether wiser.
Maurice Ravel – Piano Concerto in G
In the late 1920s, Ravel spent four months in the US, where he met Gershwin, heard his Rhapsody in Blue and also heard Duke Ellington in concert. Then he returned to France and composed the Piano Concerto in G. With its French harmonies and Spanish-influenced melodies, it is characteristic of Ravel, but with many jazz elements. In fact, the harmonies of impressionistic music and those more commonly associated with jazz are very similar in terms of their richness, so they complement each other well. It’s French music with a little more rhythm than usual.
Nikolai Kapustin – Piano Concerto No. 2
Kapustin grew up in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and composed jazz at a time when even saying the word ‘jazz’ on the street was prohibited. But he had access to a radio and transcribed the jazz he heard on it, weaving its soundworld into his compositions. In his Piano Concerto No. 2, that jazz influence is obvious: it sounds like Oscar Peterson might have played with an orchestra – but three times more difficult.
More of the best piano concertos inspired by jazz…
Leonard Bernstein – Symphony No. 2, ‘The Age of Anxiety’
When WH Auden wrote the 1947 poem that inspired this piece, he summed up the psychology of a generation living through the Second World War: attempting to live a normal life with constant interruptions by anxiety-inducing broadcasts from the radio. Bernstein’s piece for solo piano and orchestra hops between crazy jazz outbursts and something much darker and scarier. It really captures the mindset of someone who is desperately struggling, and failing, to forget the present.
Dana Suesse – Concerto for Combo and Orchestra
Although we’re now trying to recognise female composers, we still haven’t really discovered the American composer Dana Suesse. Although she was often referred to as ‘the Gershwin girl’ and wrote in a style that was reminiscent of Gershwin, who was ten years her senior, hers was a distinctive approach to blending the worlds of classical and jazz: very structured. Sometimes she even includes a fugue!
Duke Ellington – New World A-Comin’
While many pieces on this list were written by classically trained composers, it’s fascinating to hear a fusion of classical and jazz from a real jazz musician. Duke Ellington composed so many jazz songs and played with his jazz band for decades. But later in life he became very interested in classical music, as shown in his jazz versions of The Nutcracker and Peer Gynt. In New World A-Comin’ he draws on blues and spiritual gospel. This is old-school jazz.
More of the best piano concertos inspired by jazz…
John Adams – Century Rolls
Taking inspiration from the 1920s player piano, this piece takes us on a white-knuckle ride through a century of music. You hear jazz, yes, but also the likes of Rachmaninov and Paderewski. What binds it together is John Adams’s minimalist style: circling rhythmical passages, like the repetitive motion of piano rolls. You feel like you’re on a train going through a tunnel of shifting colours. There is no right turn, no left: only straight ahead. And it’s exhilarating.
Who is Frank Dupree?
Frank Dupree has chosen his top piano concertos inspired by jazz… but who is he?
Born in Rastatt, Germany, pianist Frank Dupree is a devotee of new music and has collaborated with contemporary composers such as Péter Eötvös and Wolfgang Rihm. He is also passionate about music that treads the boundary between classical and jazz – in addition to the piano, he plays jazz percussion, and has championed the music of Nikolai Kapustin, a composer who blends classical structures with jazz harmonies and rhythms. On 18 and 19 December he performs Kapustin’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican.