Steven L. Rosenhaus

Concerto Grosso

Concerto Grosso was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, the Camerata Youth Orchestra of Long Island (NY) and its director, Roberta Kaufman. The work is cast in one movement. It is based on the exaggeration of the Baroque concerto grosso principle, in which a group of soloists — the concertino — is accompanied by and/or pitted against a larger ensemble — the ripieno. The soloists here are a string quartet sitting in first-chair positions within the orchestra or separately in front. The quartet performs a slow and somewhat dissonant chorale in duple meter, while the orchestra responds with fast-moving passages clearly in D minor and triple meter. The climax of the work is the first simultaneous presentation of the opposing thematic materials, at which point the music transforms into a sort of synthesis of the two ideas.