Maurice Ravel had long intended to compose a work for piano and orchestra, but he would not complete his two piano concertos (one for the left hand alone and this one for both hands) until he was in his mid-fifties. A triumphant tour of the United States in 1928 had solidified his reputation as one of the world’s greatest living composers, and he began work on his Piano Concerto in G the following year.
It is thus easy to hear the concerto as a sort of musical self-portrait of Ravel’s artistic aims and beliefs. Reacting against the heroics and bombast of many 19th-century concertos, Ravel said that his new work was “[…] a concerto in the truest sense of the word: I mean that it is written very much in the same spirit as those of Mozart and Saint-Saëns.”
And today I have a special video for your enjoyment: It allows you to watch how the concerto is prepared for performance with Martha Argerich as piano soloist:
