Piano Concerto No. 1 (Villa-Lobos)

Piano Concerto No. 1, W453, is a composition for piano and orchestra by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1945. A performance lasts about 38 minutes.
History.
Villa-Lobos composed his First Piano Concerto in Rio de Janeiro in 1945. It was commissioned by the Canadian pianist Ellen Ballon, who gave the first performance at the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro on 11 October 1946, with the composer conducting the Orquestra Sinfônica do Theatro Municipal. Ballon also gave the American premiere of the concerto in Dallas, conducted by Antal Dorati in 1946, the Canadian premiere with Désiré Defauw on 28 October 1947 at the Plateau Auditorium in Montreal, and the London premiere with Thomas Beecham in 1956. She also recorded the work with Ernest Ansermet in 1949, with whom she also made return Canadian performances on 30 and 31 January 1951 with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.
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, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion (tam-tam, triangle, bass drum), harp, and strings.
Analysis.
The concerto has four movements:
Although Villa-Lobos adheres to the four-movement structure often found in piano concertos, he makes little effort to follow the traditional structures, based on melodic ideas, within the movements. Instead, he uses rhythmic elements to define sections of movements.
References.
Sources