Concerto for Two Pianos (Stravinsky)

The order of the movements was a challenging issue for Stravinsky, due to his break at the time of composing this work. Stravinsky stated in a conversation with Robert Craft that the third movement was meant to be placed after the first movement.[4] Nevertheless, Stravinsky expert Eric Walter White claims that Stravinsky had put the variations after the fugue but eventually decided to change it because the last chord of the fugue was stronger.[2]

There are discernible patterns in the work that indicate that every movement is in a different tonality.

The first movement is in E minor, even though it modulates to B♭ major in its middle section, its most remote key possible. However, the background voices are often dissonant with the two melodic subjects, which generate bitonality. The second movement is in G major and, as in the first movement, it also modulates to D♭ major, its most remote key, in its central section. The first variation is in G minor and modulates to B♭ major, the second is in the same key as the previous one and modulates to C♯ minor, the third is still in the same key as the previous one and changes to A♯ minor (which is an enharmonic key with B♭ minor) and the last variation rotates round G minor or E♭ major while the harmonisation of the first piano implies C major. Ultimately, the last variation modulates to D major. Both the prelude and the fugue are in D, but, towards the end, a descending chromatic scale performed nonsimultaneously by both of the pianos makes it to change to E major.[2]

The first movement is in a form that recalls a first movement of a sonata, with its tonal regions and its recapitulation; this movement is full of repeated notes and chords, in which its energy and momentum is based. In the central section of this movement, sixteenth notes are grouped in sextuplets repeated in ⁴
₄.

The second movement, Notturno, was described by Stravinsky as "not so much night music as after-dinner music, in fact, a digestive to the largest movements", as he also stated that the first piano part was like "a ballerina represented by a harpsichord".

The third movement is a collection of variations of a theme that is not present in that movement, but in the fugue of the following movement. These four variations are characterised by having different speeds, melodic lines in different octaves throughout the whole movement; in the last variation, a typical Stravinsky technique (an ostinato in G and B♭, that is, a third interval) is present. In various statements, Stravinsky claims he could have orchestrated this specific movement, but he wanted the composition to remain a composition for two pianos so that he and his son could play it.[4]

The fourth and final movement is a slow prelude and a four-voiced fugue, followed by an after-fugue in which the notes of the theme are represented in inversion. Accompanying the four voices, one more voice repeats notes in sextuplets, which is a direct reference to the first movement. It ends with a strongly dissonant fortissimo chord by the two pianos, followed by a softer and more consonant chord which closes the concerto, though in 1957 Stravinsky expressed to American pianist Paul Jacobs that he wanted to leave out the softer chord. Stravinsky considered this movement the one in the whole concerto he was most fond of.[4]