CONCERTO IN ONE MOVEMENT, FLORENCE PRICE | Olga Kopylova

Florence Price (1887-1953) Concerto in One Movement (1934) Olga Kopylova - piano José Soares - conductor Rio de Janeiro Youth Orchestra Concerto in One Movement for piano was premiered in Chicago in 1934 with Price herself as pianist. There is no evidence that the piece was performed after the 1930s, and there are no surviving copies of the composer’s manuscript of the orchestral score. Composer Trevor Weston was commissioned to reconstruct the concerto’s orchestration in order to revive this worthy work. The New York Times critic Joshua Barone writes after the concerto was performed by American pianist Michelle Cann with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2022: “There are more than a few surprising aspects to Florence Price and her Piano Concerto in One Movement, starting with the fact that a black woman in 1930s America managed to get her work noticed and performed by the classical music establishment. But what strikes me after hearing the concerto more than a dozen times is how much it says in so little time. Listeners marvel at the concentrated musical language Beethoven used in some of his later works. But here is Price moving from storm to carefree summer idyll to ecstatic joy—so deftly, with so many other, more subtle emotional messages along the way—in well under 20 minutes.” #classicalmusic #orquestrasinfonica #piano