The overall character of the work was influenced by the composer's hearing German pianist Walter Gieseking rehearse Ludwig van Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto in 1950.
The events that initiated the cycle contributed to its conceptual dimensions and date back to January 1950 when he was deep into the compositional process for The Midsummer Marriage.
[1] Echoes of the opera resonate throughout Concerto while two other previous compositions: the Fantasia on a Theme of Handel (1939–41) and the First Symphony (1944-5) figure prominently in the creative cycle as well.
Conventional in its sonata form, this movement opens gently, reminiscent of the Beethoven Fourth Concerto, before the full orchestra enters in an A-flat passage that emphasizes the pastoral tone of the music.
Tippett had used a similar ensemble in The Midsummer Marriage, as Ian Kemp explains, "to emphasize the timeless presences that move beyond the surface realities of life ... mysterious yet familiar.
There, "an energetic line of sextuplets begins a canonic process that becomes the accompaniment for a lyrical melody of sustained notes and arpeggios in the solo viola.
Without warning, winds and brass loudly state fragments of irregular length from the sextuplet passage between rests, bringing the forward motion to a halt.
Compared with the serenity of the opening movement, the central one is what Kemp calls "dense and disturbing, a kind of tournament between faceless close canons from pairs of wind instruments and manic cascades from the piano.
[4] British musicologist and writer Arnold Whittall considers this movement "more radical and forward-looking" than the opening one, "its textural and tonal conflicts embodied in a polyphony which is elaborate even by Tippett's standards, and with a tripartite form which is progressive rather than symmetrically closed"—a-b-c instead of the usual a-b-a.
[7] Gloag suggests the quiet opening of the concerto, with the soloist introducing a G major harmony, as the most obvious fingerprint, from a compositional standpoint, to the Beethoven Fourth.
[10] The return of this opening gesture in the key of A-flat major, Gloag continues, "reflects Tippett's engagement" with Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.
As opposed to the dynamic intensity present in Beethoven works such as the Fifth Symphony and the "Emperor" Concerto, Tippett allows "change to take place gradually: ambiguity and avoidance of the explicit are exploited for their capacity to arouse expectations of coherent continuation.
"[14] Whittall maintains that, because it was an extended orchestral work that followed the protracted gestation of an opera, the Piano Concerto is "one of Tippett's most intriguing and absorbing compositions.
"[12] He adds that it also follows the Concerto for Double String Orchestra and The Midsummer Marriage in its blend of "lyric reflection and 'active' counterpoint into a highly purposeful relationship... [L]yrirism keeps drama at a distance; but the purely tonal and harmonic 'argument' is still rich and fascinating, while the formal consequences of the lyric episodes took Tippett's already complex relationship with the conventions of the classical-romantic tradition forward to a new stage.