Dave's Music Hall of Fame: Album Inductees (May 2024)

The Top Concertos Originally posted 5/22/2024. January 22, 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of the DMDB blog. To honor that, Dave’s Music Database announced its own Hall of Fame. This month marks the 22nd group of album inductees. These are the top 10 concertos of all time (see the full list here). Three were already inducted in previously classes: Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major (Emperor). A concerto is a solo instrument accompanied by an orchestra. See the full list of album inductees here.

Johann Sebastian Bach The Brandenberg Concertos (1719-1721) Inducted May 2024 as “Top Concertos.”

Bach’s six Brandenburg concerts make for “the most complex and artistically successful failed job application in recorded history.” K1 He wrote them for Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg, suspecting the royal might give him a job. However, the “Margrave never thanked Bach, paid him a fee, staged a performance of the works, or offered him a position.” AS Nonetheless, the pieces showcase Bach free from the restraints of more conventional religious works. His “renegade streak emerges” TM showing him “having fun on a rare day off from church.” TM Read more.

Béla Bartók Concerto for Orchestra (1944) Inducted May 2024 as “Top Concertos.”

This is one of Bartók’s “best-known, most popular and most accessible works.” WK “It doesn’t adhere to concerto form” TM “which features a solo instrument with orchestral accompaniment” WK nor does it fit “the template for a symphony.” TM Bartók considered it a concerto “because of the way each section of instruments is treated in a soloistic and virtuosic way.” WK He saw it “as a series of dialogs between various soloists and the larger group.” TM Read more.

Ludwig van Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major (1806) Inducted May 2024 as “Top Concertos.”

Beethoven’s violin concerto wasn’t initially well received upon its premiere but was revived in 1844 12-year-old violinist Joseph Joachim. On his 75th birthday, Joachim “observed that German had given the world four essential violin concertos. He esteemed Beethoven’s to be the greatest.” TM Read more.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (composer) Piano Concerto No. 20 (1785) Inducted May 2024 as “Top Concertos.”

Mozart’s 20th piano concerto has been hailed as a “trailblazing” work “that survived the neglect of so much of Mozart’s music during the nineteenth century.” AM “Beethoven, both smitten and influenced, played it publicly.” AM Mozart completed it only the day before it premiered. His father Leopold called it “a new, superb piano concerto by Wolfgang, which the copyist was still writing when we arrived.” AM He didn’t even have time to play the rondo because he was still revising copies of the orchestral parts. AM Read more.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21 (1785) Inducted May 2024 as “Top Concertos.”

Mozart’s 21st piano concerto was “composed for the series of Lenten subscription concerts given by Mozart in 1765. This was an extraordinarily busy and successful period of Mozart’s life.” AM His father Leopold said, “Every day there are concerts; and the whole time is given up to teaching, music, composing and so forth...It is impossible for me to describe the rush and the bustle.” AM The first of the concerts referenced by Leopold was on February 11, when Piano Concerto No. 20 premiered. No. 21 was introduced a month later at a benefit concert at the National Court Theater. Read more.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A major (1791) Inducted May 2024 as “Top Concertos.”

Mozart’s clarinet concerto was written for clarinetist Anton Stadler. Work started in 1789 and the piece was completed in October 1791, less than two months before Mozart’s death. AM It was “his final purely instrumental work.” WK It “is notable for its delicate interplay between soloist and orchestra, and for the lack of overly extroverted display on the part of the soloist (no cadenzas are written out in the solo part).” WK Read more.

Sergei Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor (1901) Inducted May 2024 as “Top Concertos.”

Rachmaninov suffered a series of failures at the end of the 19th century. He was expelled from music school in 1885 and turned to drinking after the failure of his first symphony two years later. AM By 1899, his alcoholism was threatening his career – his hands shook to the point of hampering his ability to play. In 1900, he turned to neuropsychotherapy, hypnosis, and trance therapy to turn things around. It worked – not only did he compose this concerto, but over the last 40 years of his life, he never succumbed again to depression. AM Read more.