His devoted champion, the English pianist Edna Iles, had moved to her parents' home in the Birmingham suburb of Moseley, and the Medtners came to stay there too.
[3] Medtner said in private that the concerto's first movement was inspired by Mikhail Lermontov's ballad Rusalka, about a water-nymph whose seductive advances fail to arouse a sleeping knight.
He extended Lermontov's poem for the remaining movements: the knight (personifying the human spirit) awakens and sings a song that turns into a hymn, symbolizing his triumph over temptation and his achievement of redemption and eternal life.
[8] After his death, in 1951, Anne offered the Ukrainian pianist Dmitry Paperno, who was aged only 22, an opportunity to give the Russian premiere of the Third Concerto, but turned it down.
The Third Concerto was later played in a tribute concert conducted by Anatole Fistoulari, at Anna's request; Colin Horsley, the New Zealand-born pianist, who also posthumously premiered the Piano Quintet, was the soloist.
According to an analysis of the piece published by the University of Iowa,[10] the first movement is in variation form and has 4 themes and a "horn motif" that acts as a ritornello.