Hannikainen Piano Concerto

[Alan Howe]

Oliver Triendl strikes yet again!
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/ilmari-hannikainen-klavierkonzert-b-moll-op-7/hnum/12443319

Please also see this previous thread:
https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,4742.msg50686.html#msg50686

[Wheesht]

Excellent news. Having located a copy of the Finlandia recording on Discogs a few years ago, only to be informed by the seller that it could not be found, I am delighted that I can finally get hold of a recording, and one that promises to be good judging by the extracts.

[Darrel Hoffman]

There's another performance of this by Arto Satukangas on YT:

Not sure which is better as I haven't had a chance to listen to the Triendl performance.

[tuatara442442]

I can only say the first movement is totally a knock-off of Tchaikovsky's First. The second movement though impresses me most, and features an extraordinary jump-scare kickoff of the middle section. I actually prefer that to the jolly and for me silly middle section of the middle movement of Tchaik's First...

[Alan Howe]

the first movement is totally a knock-off of Tchaikovsky's First

That had never occurred to me. Isn't the idiom much more 20th century? An interesting thought nevertheless.

[tuatara442442]

the first movement is totally a knock-off of Tchaikovsky's First

That had never occurred to me. Isn't the idiom much more 20th century? An interesting thought nevertheless.

Maybe I'm too harsh on the composer that he chose a model to imitate, but it is obvious in that the introduction is a self-contained fanfare and the first subject is a scherzando toccata thing. That is not something many other composers did in my memory.
Considering the existence of a fast middle section of the second movement I think this hypothesis is more legitimate than one would casually think of. But I don't remember other parts of Hannikainen's concerto well so I have to give it another listen

[eschiss1]

"self-contained fanfare and the first subject is a scherzando toccata thing"...
So, not -wholly- unlike the opening of Prokofiev's first piano concerto, either. (Actually, that sounds to me more like a description of the Prokofiev than of the Tchaikovsky!)

[tuatara442442]

Oh, I forget about that work! That one opens only more peculiarly.
And different from Tchaik's 1st, in the Hannikainen concerto, the opening fanfare theme actually returned, both in the development and recapitulation, so the scherzando toccata theme is a kind of B group of the first subject?
But another similarity to Tchaik 1st is that the two works are both in B-Flat Minor.

[eschiss1]

whereas the Tchaik opens as though in D-flat (after those first few bars that are definitely in B-flat minor), and Prokofiev's is actually in D-flat
As to what to call the piano first entry in D-flat (I'm reluctant to use sonata-form terms for piano concerto first movements, this can be extraordinarily misleading especially for composers who knew what they were doing like Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms) I'm- not actually sure.

[tuatara442442]

Though this not neatly the case in Tchaik 1st, I think you can still discern a solo entry in the exposition (or at least solo exposition in double exposition) from a solo entry before that. From my experiences, one way to structuring an opening in a concerto, especially a double exposition one, is to make the solo instrument comes in early at first for a short period of time, usually for a cadenza or similar showy displays, then proceed to the purely orchestral exposition, and finally make the soloist enter again in more traditional places. I see it as a modification to balance the long orchestral exposition.
A famous example is Brahms' PC2.
More obscure ones: Bliss PC, Martucci PC2, V. Novak PC, Rufinatscha PC, etc.

[eschiss1]

It's that very term "double exposition" whose serious inaccuracy (in Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms especially) is outside the framework of this thread but does get me The tutti is not a first exposition- its relationship to the rest of the movement is more complicated and has to do with the fact that this is a concerto, not a symphony...

[tuatara442442]

I'm aware that "double exposition" does not equal to "exposition repeat in a concertant guise" sometimes, if that's what you mean.
Actually I think this kind of contrasting tutti and solo "expositions" could have potential in large one-movement works to provide them with more thematic groups in the opening, whether concertant or not (just replace the solo with a set of material and instrumentation that contrasts the previous tutti, for example). One can even set up multiple times of development and recapitulation later. However I don't know if anyone has explored that possibility...

[eschiss1]

Such terminology leads one to believe that moments where, say, the solo enters with a wholly new theme after the opening are an exception of relatively little interest (or at the least, an exception), rather than a development (evolution, if that's clearer, though it doesn't imply the composer will thenceforth do so every time afterwards) in the composer's treatment of the form. I am saying it misunderstands the whole role of the opening segment, and that the "double exposition" theory doesn't explain- as others do- why the opening tutti almost never modulates, and even then even more rarely substantially, not the way an actual sonata exposition does- it practically always ends in the tonic, not in another key. There are better understandings of the role of the opening tutti that give much better explanations for that. I can refer you to Thorpe Davie (Musical Structure and Design), for example...

[tuatara442442]

Thanks for recommending the book, Eric.

[semloh]

BTW, performances of both works on this CD can be found in the Finnish section of the downloads archive.