Piano Concerto No. 2 (Villa-Lobos)

The Piano Concerto No. 2, W487, is a piano concerto by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1948. A performance lasts about 28 minutes.
History.
Villa-Lobos composed his Second Piano Concerto in Rio de Janeiro in 1948. The score is dedicated to , who gave the first performance on 21 April 1950 at the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, with the Orquestra Sinfônica do Theatro Municipal, conducted by the composer.
Instrumentation.
The work is scored for solo piano and an orchestra consisting of piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 tenor trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (tam-tam, cymbal, bass drum), celesta, harp, and strings.
Analysis.
The concerto has four movements:
In the first movement, the solo part emphasizes parallel chord movements in both hands. The main theme has a modal colouring, and irregular metres occur throughout the movement.
The second movement has been described as "a sticky, humid nocturne furnished with a lush orchestral carpet, above which the piano leaps and tumbles through a remote harmonic maze of augmented fourths and tritones ".
The third movement is entirely taken up with a cadenza for the soloist, while the scherzo-finale has an energetic, Mediterranean-tinged first theme and a lyrical central section in the manner of a Brazilian modinha .