In celebration of my 400th watcher, I am now posting the second movement of my Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in F Sharp Minor. This musical work is without compare my greatest musical composition in terms of scope, orchestration, technique, form, and thematic development. It began life in 1999 as my Piano Sonata in F Sharp Minor (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4684333/) but within two years had turned into a full-fledged Romantic Era Piano Concerto. I consider this work my Magnum Opus.

The First Movement is available here:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6347195/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6347207/

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in F Sharp Minor - Movement II: Fast and Jumpy

Part I - Intro, Theme A, Modulating Bridge, Theme B, Closing Theme, "Trio"
Part II - Recapitulation, Coda (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10206838/)

The music is based around a two note, four note, and six note theme. F# - G# / G# - A / B - C#. This theme and its subthemes are reversed and inverted throughout all four movements.

The second movement is a Scherzo, and it blends the Scherzo-Trio form with Sonata-Allegro form with the trio section taking the place of the Development section.

0:00 - The Intro begins with the piano playing an upward rising major second B - C#. This is repeated with a feverish intensity that is joined by brass and strings before coming to a cadence and the first theme.

0:21 - Theme A uses the six note theme and is based on the main theme from the first movement. It also introduces the first of four themes that are borrowed in this movement from the works of other composers. The rhythm remains in duple time but the piano plays triplets to effect a suggestion of 6/8 time.

1:05 - The Modulating Bridge plays fragments of the first theme against an unwavering piano background that includes the DSCH and BACH in both forward and retrograde motion. The effect is playful and jarring. It settles in the lowest register of the piano where Eb Major is established.

1:50 - Theme B also uses the six note theme but now it turns back on itself in a playful romp between strings, woodwinds and brass. The pianist enters in with contrasting material which attempts to disrupt the flow of the orchestra, ultimately ending in a whump of a tone cluster before briefly quoting another composer in the bridge to the closing theme.

3:18 - The closing theme acts as a quasi-reprisal of Theme A but now with a bit of a march beat as if it were masquerading as a noble in procession. But the incessant two-note leap from the beginning returns to drown everything else out. A bright major key cadence seems to close the music out, except for a sudden blare of an Italian Sixth chord at 3:52

3:54 - The trio section uses two themes blended together from two different composers. One of them is the opening bar from George Lloyd's First Piano Concerto "Scapegoat" and provides a mysterious woodwind close to the shimmering chords in the strings. This section begins with an almost mystical vision in the orchestra which slowly evolves, with shimmering piano and harp arpeggios, until it a brief mote of darkness ensues (5:01). This is followed by the mystical theme given a sudden martial character (5:20), with a theme that had been described by its composer as a snake in the garden. The pianist again tries to disrupt the orchestral tutti by playing a version of the second theme from the first movement. Everything fades away in preparation for the Recapitulation.

Continued in Part II...

The Orchestration:

2 Flutes
2 Oboes
2 Clarinets in A
2 Bassoons
4 French Horns
4 Trumpets in C
2 Trombones
1 Bass Trombone
1 Tuba
Tympani
Bass Drum
Harp
Celeste
Glockenspiel
Grand Piano
Violins I, II
Violas
Cellos
String Basses

Dominus vobiscum