Nothing you are asked about will be familiar

Here is the single most useful fact about this part of your course, and it changes how you should revise it. ⚠️⚠️ NO NAMED PIECE IS EXAMINABLE. THE EXTRACTS IN THE EXAM ARE UNFAMILIAR, AND THEY MAY NOT EVEN BE BY ONE OF THE COMPOSERS YOUR TEACHER PLAYED YOU. Your specification suggests eight composers as illustration. It says explicitly that they are not examinable. ⭐ SO EVERY HOUR SPENT MEMORISING FACTS ABOUT A PARTICULAR CONCERTO IS AN HOUR SPENT WHERE THERE ARE NO MARKS. Which raises an obvious question. If they will play you something you have never heard, what is there to revise? ⭐⭐ THE HISTORY. NOT AS BACKGROUND, BUT AS THE RECOGNITION TOOL ITSELF. YOU LEARN HOW THE CONCERTO DEVELOPED SO THAT AN EXTRACT YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD WILL TELL YOU ITS OWN DATE. A concerto, at its simplest, is a piece for a soloist, or a small group of soloists, set against a larger group of players. ⚠️ AND THE WHOLE OF THIS TOPIC IS ABOUT ONE RELATIONSHIP CHANGING OVER ROUGHLY TWO AND A HALF CENTURIES: WHO IS IN CHARGE, THE ONE OR THE MANY? Three things move across that time, and the reason this is worth learning is that they move TOGETHER. ⭐ THE ORCHESTRA GROWS. A small group that could fit in a room becomes a large one that fills a hall. ⭐ THE SOLOIST SEPARATES FROM IT. At the start the soloist is one of the band, first among equals, playing along when not leading. By the end they are a distinct figure, set against the orchestra rather than embedded in it. ⭐ AND THE DIFFICULTY RISES. As the soloist stands further apart, more is demanded of them, until display becomes part of the point. ⚠️ BECAUSE THEY MOVE TOGETHER, ANY ONE OF THEM DATES AN EXTRACT AND THE OTHER TWO CHECK YOUR ANSWER. One question to carry through everything that follows: who is in charge here, and how hard is the soloist being made to work?

Three things moving together

The same three questions asked at three points in time. Read across a row to date an extract, and down a column to hear a period.

Tap what this approach actually claims

Tap the TWO statements that follow from the history being a recognition tool rather than background.

Because orchestral size, the soloist's separateness and the level of difficulty move together, any one of them can date an extract
Revision should prepare you for music you have never heard rather than for particular pieces
The safest preparation is to memorise the details of the eight suggested works
The soloist has always stood apart from the orchestra, since that is what makes a piece a concerto

One thing you can hear, and what it settles

An extract has a keyboard filling in harmony underneath almost the whole time, and the solo violin keeps joining in with the group when it is not leading. What does that combination tell you?

It points firmly to the earliest period, because that continuous keyboard underpinning and a soloist who is still one of the band both belong to the same stage of the development
It points to the middle period, because that is when the orchestra became standardised
It points to the latest period, because the orchestra is clearly large
Neither feature dates it, since a keyboard can appear in any period

Five words for the relationship

Five terms, each defined by what it is. Which period each one belongs to is the work of the steps that follow, and is not given here.

Match each thing you hear to what it tells you

A keyboard filling in harmony underneath almost continuously
A small group of soloists alternating with the full ensemble
The orchestra stopping dead so the soloist can play alone
A very wide range between the quietest and loudest moments
The same full-ensemble passage coming back between contrasting sections

The earliest period, when the ensemble was small enough for one instrument to underpin everything
A concerto with more than one soloist, which places it before the single soloist became standard
A moment for display that becomes an expected feature from the middle period onwards
A large orchestra in a large hall, so the latest of the three periods
A way of building a movement by alternation rather than by developing one idea

Two that follow from unfamiliar extracts

Select the TWO statements that follow from the exam using extracts you have never heard.

What is worth learning is the features that place a piece in time, because those are present in any concerto
A period guess is stronger when two or three separate features agree than when it rests on one
The eight suggested composers should be memorised in detail, since the exam will draw its extracts from them
Identifying the composer of an extract is the main skill being tested

What to do in the seconds after the extract starts

You have already met the idea that this paper asks you to DESCRIBE what you hear rather than to produce definitions, and that the vocabulary list is a promise about what can be asked rather than a list to recite. ⚠️ THAT HOLDS HERE. WHAT THIS TOPIC ADDS IS AN ORDER TO LISTEN IN. ⭐ COUNT THE FORCES FIRST, BECAUSE IT IS THE EASIEST THING TO HEAR AND IT NARROWS EVERYTHING ELSE. Does this sound like a few players in a room, or a lot of players in a hall? Is there one soloist, or several taking turns? ⭐ THEN ASK WHERE THE SOLOIST IS STANDING, MUSICALLY. Are they part of the texture, dropping in and out of the group, or clearly set against it and answered by it? ⚠️ THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST RELIABLE DATING QUESTION IN THE TOPIC. ⭐ THEN ASK HOW HARD THEY ARE WORKING, and in particular whether the writing goes beyond what the music needs in order to show what the player can do. Those three answers will usually agree, and when they agree you have your period. ⚠️ AND WHEN THEY DISAGREE, SAY SO RATHER THAN PICKING ONE. A piece written deliberately in an older manner, or one from the join between two periods, is a real thing, and an answer that says two features point one way and one points the other is showing more than an answer that commits blindly. ⚠️ THREE HABITS THAT COST MARKS ON THIS PAPER. ⚠️ THE FIRST IS GUESSING THE COMPOSER. You are not asked to, you will usually be wrong, and it uses up the time you needed for describing. ⚠️ THE SECOND IS NAMING A PERIOD WITHOUT EVIDENCE. "This is Romantic" is a guess; "the orchestra is large, the dynamic range is very wide and the soloist is set against the whole body of sound, so this is Romantic" is an answer. ⚠️ AND THE THIRD IS DESCRIBING THE MOOD INSTEAD OF THE MUSIC. How a piece makes you feel is not evidence. What the players are doing is.

Why it changed, and why the three move together

It would be easy to learn three lists and never ask why the concerto changed at all. The why is what makes the three features move together, and it is what an examiner is really rewarding. START WITH THE ROOM. The earliest concertos were played in rooms: a hall in a palace, a gallery in a church, an audience of a few dozen people who had been invited. ⭐ A SMALL ROOM NEEDS ONLY A SMALL GROUP, AND IN A SMALL GROUP EVERYONE CAN HEAR EVERYONE ELSE. ⚠️ AND THAT IS WHY THE SOLOIST STARTS OUT INSIDE THE BAND RATHER THAN IN FRONT OF IT. There is no need to stand apart to be heard, the group can be held together by the player at the keyboard, and the leading part passes back and forth. The music is built by alternation: the whole group plays a passage, the soloist answers, the group's passage returns. NOW THE ROOM CHANGES. Over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, concerts moved out of private rooms and into public halls, sold to an audience that had paid to come in. ⭐ A LARGER ROOM AND A PAYING PUBLIC BOTH PUSH THE SAME WAY: MORE PLAYERS. The reasons behind that shift, and who was commissioning the music, belong to another part of this area of study; what matters here is the consequence. ⚠️ THE CONSEQUENCE IS THAT THE OLD ARRANGEMENT STOPS WORKING. A large orchestra cannot be steered from within by a player who is also the soloist, so a single soloist is placed in front of it, and the harmony-filling keyboard that used to hold everything together is no longer needed and falls away. ⭐ THAT ONE CHANGE PRODUCES THE OTHER TWO. A soloist standing in front of a large orchestra must be audible against it, which changes how they are written for. And a soloist the audience has come specifically to watch can be asked to do far more than the music strictly requires, because the display is now part of what was bought. A moment where the orchestra falls silent altogether and the player is left alone is the clearest form of it. ⚠️ SO THE SIZE, THE SEPARATION AND THE DIFFICULTY ARE NOT THREE FACTS TO MEMORISE. THEY ARE ONE CHANGE SEEN FROM THREE ANGLES, and that is exactly why hearing one of them lets you predict the other two in music you have never heard before.

Order the development, earliest first

Put these six stages into the order they happened, from the earliest concertos to the latest.

A small group plays in a private room, held together by a keyboard filling in the harmony
A small group of soloists alternates with the full ensemble, rather than a single player
A single soloist becomes standard, and the continuous keyboard underpinning falls away
Concerts move into larger public halls and the orchestra grows to fill them
The soloist is left alone by the orchestra for a passage of display near the end of a movement
Works grow much longer and the soloist becomes a dramatic individual set against a large orchestra

Build the sentence that names a period properly

This is the shape an examiner is waiting for: evidence first, conclusion second. Assemble it.

The concerto through time run

Five questions on dating an extract you have never heard. Three lives.

Complete the concerto development facts

A concerto in which a small group of soloists rather than one alternates with the full ensemble is a _____. A passage for the full ensemble that returns between other material is a _____. A passage in which the orchestra falls silent and the soloist plays alone is a _____. Technical display going beyond what the music strictly requires is _____.

concerto grosso ritornello cadenza virtuosity concerto movement orchestra ornamentation

Three listening answers to improve

Three students describing an unfamiliar extract. In each case the mark is in the evidence, not the verdict.

An answer says "this is a Romantic concerto and it sounds very dramatic and emotional". The period is correct. Why does it score poorly?
A student hears a keyboard filling in harmony continuously but also a fairly large body of strings, and is unsure what to write. What is the best approach?
Asked why the concerto changed between 1650 and 1910, an answer lists features of each period in turn, accurately. How would you strengthen it?

Explain how to date a concerto you have never heard

A friend on your course is revising by memorising facts about named concertos. Explain what the paper actually asks of them, and how to place an unfamiliar extract in time.

Explain why memorising particular pieces earns little here, using what the specification says about the suggested repertoire
Explain the three things that change across the period and why they move together rather than separately
Give one feature they could listen for that points to the earliest period, and say what it tells them
Give one feature that points to the latest period, and say what it tells them
Explain why concerts moving into larger halls drove the soloist to stand apart from the orchestra
Finish by explaining what to write when two features point one way and a third disagrees, and why that answer scores better than committing blindly

The Concerto's Development, 1650-1910

Justify the choices, the way you are assessed

What you'll cover