Mouvements for piano and orchestra was composed in 1994 with financial assistance from the Board of Trustees for the Cultural Advancement of Aargau Canton. It was submitted to the competition for the final piece of the Queen Elizabeth Piano Competition in Belgium.
Not knowing the exact conditions of this fabled piano competition, Martin Schlumpf decided to write a piano concerto that satisfied competition’s “extrinsic” conditions: roughly 15 minutes long and scored for 3 flutes, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 5 percussionists (!), harp and strings.
The piece was ignored at the competition. After hearing recordings of earlier competitions, Schlumpf realized that the concept behind his concerto didn’t stand a chance. The Queen Elisabeth Competition only wants highly virtuoso pieces that focus squarely on the solo instrument.
This is not the case in his piece. On the contrary: it seeks to display a wide range of alternative combinations between piano and orchestra. Sometimes the soloist leads, at other times he accompanies, and at still others the partners enter a dialogue …
The mainspring of the entire piece is the idea of motion – rhythm – hence the title
Mouvements. It is dominated by four contrasting types of motion laid out in four distinct sections played without a break:
- Part A, a long and large-scale passage distantly reminiscent of Maurice Ravel’s Bolero. A fairly long rhythmic pattern enters in the marimba, very soft and “thin,” as a non-duple ostinato. It constantly grows in volume, changes its harmonic surroundings, and leads with increasing density to a rich, extroverted climax.
- Part B forms a sharp contrast: an underlying mood of delicate lyricism, with a piano part sometimes recalling a jazz song, spiced with quasi-impressionistic figures. A percussion transition leads to
- Part C, a playful and sometimes witty conversation between different orchestral groups and the solo piano. The speakers gradually begin to interrupt each other – time for a brief but very agile solo cadenza, leading with a few strokes on the bass drum to the final section D:
- A flowing superimposed passage (solo piano as an orchestral color) in which figures derived from the opening ostinato are contrasted, periodically tinged at long intervals by brass chords and gong strokes. Toward the end the even flow begins to dissolve, and the soloist is given the final lyrical word in a brief epilogue …
Mouvements was openly rehearsed and performed from 22 to 27 March 1996 by the Aargau Symphony Orchestra, Baden (Switzerland), at a workshop for school classes. Drawing on these experiences, Schlumpf revised the work in August and September 1999, clarifying some details in the orchestration, but mainly reworking and expanding the solo part. This final version received its première at the Zurich Tonhalle on 28 October 1999.
