Solo Concerto

One instrument against an orchestra, held by ritornello and cadenza

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A solo concerto sets one instrument against an orchestra, the soloist competing and leading while the orchestra repeatedly marks the boundary with the same music.

Origins and era

At the end of the seventeenth century Torelli divided the violin concerto into tutti and solo, fixing a fast-slow-fast shape. In the eighteenth century Vivaldi wrote hundreds, settling the returning orchestral passage as the ritornello, with the soloist inserting between its appearances. Mozart had the soloist rewrite the theme on entry and made piano and winds answer like operatic characters. In the nineteenth century virtuosity and orchestral volume grew together and the cadenza moved from improvisation to a written text. Twentieth-century concertos redistributed the weight again.

What you hear

Three sections, the first an allegro in which the orchestra states the ritornello, the solo decorates it, and the orchestra returns unchanged. The slow movement is lyrical, often in a related key, the solo's long notes set against pizzicato. The finale is a rondo or dance, the fastest music of the work. Hold on to the ritornello, hear what the soloist makes of it each time, and notice whether the cadenza leaves the soloist alone. Scoring is one soloist plus five string parts, with winds and horns added as needed, and continuo still present in Baroque versions. The first-movement exposition often runs twice, the orchestra stating it first and the solo repeating it in another key, which makes the solo's entry the most recognisable moment of the work. The slow movement often gives the solo an aria, and the finale lets it slip in ahead of the orchestra's tonic chord.

Key figures

Torelli and Vivaldi fixed the format, Bach and Mozart made the soloist one side of a conversation, Beethoven set solo and orchestra in open conflict, and Paganini and Liszt pushed display to its limit.

Lineage

It descends from the grouped forces of the concerto grosso and leads to the Romantic virtuoso concerto, the sinfonia concertante and the twentieth-century concerto.

Common misunderstandings

A solo concerto is not an orchestra accompanying a soloist, since the orchestral ritornello is half the structure. Nor is the cadenza always improvised, because from the nineteenth century most were written out.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Concerto, 用于核对独奏协奏曲的形成
• Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music, Vol. 2, 用于核对回归段与奏鸣曲式的结合

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.