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Concerto for piano and orchestra
1st movement: Toccata
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bars 1-10
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Toccata (Italian "toccare" = beat, touch) means in this context a brilliant 2 1/2 minute
introduction for the orchestral work. The strings present the theme in 10 bars, beginning in E
minor. A wealth of harmonic changes - in the 1st bar we hear E minor, D major, C major and D
major - characterises the musical process, filled with an intense rhythmic power and an austere
melodic quality.
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bars 11-21
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The toccata theme sounds again, somewhat extended.
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bars 23-34
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The soloist resumes the theme in forte and begins a free discussion of the melodic
elements.
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bars 35-39
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Scale-like passages, played by the orchestra and the soloist in a kind of dialogue,
form a bridge to the changed form of the theme.
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bars 40-51
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The abridged theme sounds sotto voce in the trumpets, imitated in the celli and
double bass, taken over by the soloist, once again imitated in the deep strings and by the low-sounding trumpets.
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bars 102-111
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At the end of the short toccata movement the theme appears in various forms. The
soloist plays the head of the theme in double octaves in eighth-notes. That very idea recurs in
the orchestra in fourfold imitation. This movement closes with the soloists’s brilliant octave
passages in E minor.
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