Piano Concerto No. 2

At a glance

• What it isthe first movement of Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, a slow Andante sostenuto, with the notes well sustained.
• Who, when, whywritten in 1868 by the thirty-two-year-old Saint-Saëns in little more than three weeks for the Paris conducting debut of his friend Anton Rubinstein. Saint-Saëns played the piano himself.
• What to listen forthe opening the piano spreads out alone, and the moment the orchestra enters heavily.

Listen for

• Alonewithout the orchestra, the piano spreads out chords and quick figures at a free tempo, recalling an organ improvisation.
• The entrancethe orchestra comes in with heavy chords, and the piano sings a sad, stately theme in G minor.
• Alone againnear the end the piano again has a long solo passage, then closes solemnly with the orchestra.

When it was written

Saint-Saëns, organist of the Madeleine in Paris, excelled at improvisation. When the famous Russian pianist Rubinstein was to make his debut as a conductor in Paris, Saint-Saëns offered to write a new concerto and play the solo. There was little time to rehearse, and it is said the first performance left something to be desired.

The concerto begins in a solemn Bach-like manner and ends, in its last movement, with a lively dance. Hence the story that a pianist once said it 'begins with Bach and ends with Offenbach'. Offenbach was a composer of light operettas popular in Paris.