The English Concert

The English Concert is a baroque orchestra playing on period instruments based in London. Founded in 1972 and directed from the harpsichord by Trevor Pinnock for 30 years, it is now directed by harpsichordist Harry Bicket. Nadja Zwiener has been orchestra leader (concertmaster) since September 2007.

The English Concert and Choir

The English Concert was founded by Trevor Pinnock and others in November 1972. The date of foundation is often given as 1973, probably because they started with seven people and only later progressed onto the orchestral repertoire as their number increased. They were one of the first orchestras dedicated to performing baroque and early classical music on period instruments, their repertoire from then to now ranging approximately from Monteverdi to Mozart.

Their London debut was at the English Bach Festival in 1973, which led to their first recording in 1974, Sons of Bach harpsichord concertos, on CRD records. They first played at The Proms in 1980, and toured North America in 1983. The group gained much recognition from their prolific number of recordings with Archiv Produktion from 1978 until 1995, during which they recorded most of the major baroque repertoire.

Double concerto

A double concerto (Italian: Doppio concerto; German: Doppelkonzert) refers to two distinct variations on the concerto. Most often, it refers to a concerto featuring two performers, as opposed to the usual single performer, in the solo role. These two performers' instruments may be of the same type, as in Bach's, Concerto for Two Violins, or different, as in Brahms's Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra.

The term may also be used to refer to the use of a double orchestral body where the work is in concerto grosso form; for example, Martinů's Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani is commonly known by the title "Double Concerto," where the word "double" refers to the two string bodies rather than to the piano and timpani who are not soloists in the conventional sense.

Triple concerto, etc.

Concerti with more than two solo parts may be known by the terms "triple concerto" (Italian: Concerto triplo, German: Tripelkonzert), "quadruple concerto," etc., but not usually when the instruments of the same type (e.g., Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins in B minor, catalogued as RV 580 and transcribed for four harpsichords by Bach as BWV 1065).

List of triple concertos for violin, cello, and piano

A triple concerto is a concerto for three solo instruments and orchestra.

This list of such concertos for piano trio (consisting of violin, cello and piano) and orchestra is ordered alphabetically by composer surname.

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Triple Concerto (Beethoven)

Ludwig van Beethoven's Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C major, Op. 56, more commonly known as the Triple Concerto, was composed in 1803 and later published in 1804 by Breitkopf & Härtel. The choice of the three solo instruments effectively makes this a concerto for piano trio, and it is the only concerto Beethoven ever completed for more than one solo instrument. A typical performance takes approximately thirty-seven minutes.

Beethoven's early biographer Anton Schindler claimed that the Triple Concerto was written for Beethoven's royal pupil, the Archduke Rudolf of Austria. The Archduke, who became an accomplished pianist and composer under Beethoven's tutelage, was only in his mid-teens at this time, and it seems plausible that Beethoven's strategy was to create a showy but relatively easy piano part that would be backed up by two more mature and skilled soloists. However, there is no record of Rudolf ever performing the work—it was not publicly premiered until 1808, at the summer "Augarten" concerts in Vienna—and when it came to be published, the concerto bore a dedication to a different patron: Prince Lobkowitz (Franz Joseph Maximilian Fürst von Lobkowitz).