Concerto in E for Piano and Chamber Orchestra

Considering Messiaen's symmetrical modes of limited transposition as found in his La technique de mon langage musical ("The Technique of my Musical Language"), the more often used modes beckoned less than did his sixth, with its intervals: tone, tone, semitone, semitone, tone, tone, semitone, semitone. Combining this with the most common major and minor modes yielded much musical material.

The work opens in the minor as strings are used to mull over parallel thirds, around which leaps of the seventh take place, below and above. Thereafter the solo piano announces the major, and hints at further scalar changes to come.

The orchestra states the first movement's largest theme, leaps of thirds and sixths making melody in the solo violins, first in the tonic and then in the mediant. Thereafter the piano take the melody.

A jaunty theme for clarinets and piano punctuating with parallel triads states an associative theme which then returns in a contrapuntal finale.

While the key signature remains in the major, a fugue subject in the tonic minor begins its rush to close the first of three sections in this concerto. Major and minor mix with the sixth mode as above, in a happy combination.

The piano lingers as the orchestra ends for a moment, and after some invention, the following variant on the first movement's theme built of thirds and sixths is stated, as before in major and then minor modes.

In a slower tempo to allow for fioratura in solo instruments, the solo violin and then solo clarinet add their voices, the clarinet recalling the fugue subject in its variation,

The work ends with the return of the counterpoint, in the sixth mode per Messiaen, and then a mixture of major and minor along with a mixture of the duple 6/8 and triple 3/4 meters combining to lead to an energetic coda.

The score and parts are available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this score.