Divertimento Concertante for Piano and Orchestra

Alexander Tanev wrote the Divertimento concertante — also numbered as his First Piano Concerto — in 1976, during a difficult period in his life, and produced his most cheerful score. Play governs the outer movements: the first is scherzo-like to the edge of parody, with sharply drawn images and shifting rhythmic groupings. The middle movement is its opposite, a sparse piano texture in dialogue with the orchestra, a conversation possible only in quiet. The finale opens with a theme in unison, plain and bright — a family signal — and moves through jazz-inflected episodes to a glittering close.