Piano Concerto No. 2

Mozart was a brilliant pianist and took to the keyboard to premiere many of his beloved piano concertos. Those works are subtly present in John Hilliard’s Piano Concerto No. 2, commissioned in 2003 by the Staunton Music Festival. Hilliard’s initial work on the concerto was interrupted when the Augsburg Mozartfest (Germany) asked him to complete a Mozart fragment and compose a set of variations upon the same fragment. This commission inspired a deeper examination of Mozart’s music, particularly the concertos. Hilliard resumed composing his own concerto during summer 2004, and it was completed only several weeks before its Staunton premiere in August. Kudos to Mr. Hilliard: Mozart usually finished his concertos only hours before the premiere!
For those who enjoy hints of stylistic collusion, Hilliard admits that his concerto betrays the influence of Schoenberg, Ravel, Stravinsky, Ives and Balinese Gamelan (Hilliard played in a gamelan ensemble while at Cornell). As he puts it, “No artist stands alone and is original; we all are influenced and stand upon the historical shoulders of those great ones who have gone before us.”
The opening movement is the most expansive of the three and juxtaposes two themes marked “Gigue” and “Nocturne 1” by the composer. These themes alternate in rondo fashion, contrasting with each other in mood, and interspersed with cadenzas for solo piano. The slow movement, titled “Strophes”, has been scored as an extended piano solo. Hilliard weaves in quotations from a Bach chorale, snippets of which can be discerned periodically amidst the thick chromatic chord progressions. This material flows without pause into a lengthy march-like introduction to the finale. Echoes of the first movement abound, especially the lush textures redolent of Liszt or Rachmaninoff. The finale’s main theme provides for a rousing end as it samples the buoyant pianistic styles of Prokofiev and Shostakovich (as in the latter’s sunny Piano Concerto No. 2), plus touches of Copland and minimalism. Hilliard’s concerto clearly thrives on an eclectic mix drawn from the previous century, and its position at the start of the 21st century allows it to survey the whole piano concerto genre from Mozart to the 1970s.

(c) Jason Stell