Anthony Ritchie Photo: Gareth Watkins / Lilburn Trust / Wallace Arts Trust
Anthony Ritchie’s 'Piano Concerto No 3' began life as a 2008 commission from the Manukau Symphony Orchestra, a community orchestra based in South Auckland. “I was given freedom to write any sort of piece I wanted for the Manukau Symphony,” Ritchie says. “It was my idea to write a piano concerto, as I had got to know Emma Sayers [the concerto’s dedicatee] and her wonderful playing, and decided I should write her the work.”
Pianist Stephen de Pledge Photo: Kelley Eady-Loveridge
Low and high moods combine with past and present sounds in this piano concerto.
The work’s movements also follow a Classical fast-slow-fast structure. But the sounds evoked are contemporary, speaking to a 21st-century listener’s ear.
In the slow opening introduction for example, the pianist plays solo, each note weighted with feeling. The emphasis here (as it is throughout the work) is clearly expression over technical pyrotechnics. When the strings take up the piano’s theme the effect is cinematic, evocative of remote windswept landscapes, stripped of the warmth of humanity. The segue into the allegro section of this movement heralds one of the “high mood” passages in the work.
The second movement, like the slow opening, speaks of the ache of loneliness “in a very direct and simple way; it is deliberately simple and emotional,” says Ritchie.
The third movement by contrast is instantly jovial, the mood one of skittering, playful, even child-like energy. Ritchie says, “The piano’s whimsy is contrasted with some rude interruptions – the percussion, for example.” The rat-a-tat of the snare drum (perhaps suggesting toy soldiers) rounds off this life-affirming work with a rousing finish.
Recorded 20 November 2020, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Darryl Stack
