Honks & hyacinths

Five concerto oddities

Who says that a concerto has to be for a musical instrument? Certainly not Leroy Anderson, whose 1950 The Typewriter brought together the sounds of the office and the orchestra in glorious harmony – no prizes for guessing what the soloist plays. Clickety-clacking of a different type can also be enjoyed in the Tap Dance Concerto by Anderson’s fellow American Morton Gould, a work premiered by dancer Danny Daniels and the Rochester Philharmonic in 1952. It was the world of sport, meanwhile, that inspired Andy Akiho’s ‘Ricochet’ Concerto for Ping Pong, Violin, Percussion and Orchestra (2015), which features two people playing a game of table tennis at the front of the stage. Stephen Montague’s 2018 Horn Concerto may sound orthodox… except that the ‘horn’ in question is a car klaxon (right), accompanied by ‘an orchestra of automobiles’.

Finally, the soloist in Mark Applebaum’s Concerto for Florist and Orchestra (2009) remains completely silent, beguiling the eyes rather than the ears as he or she assembles a bouquet (above).