Colette Mourey, Concerto Français
pour guitare et orchestre symphonique (Réduction pour Piano et Guitare).

"French Concerto" by Colette Mourey, is a concert for guitar and symphony orchestra in four movements. What is offered here as either PDF or Print-on-Demand, is the piano reduction and the guitar part.

The partiture and all instrumental parts are also included (but only as PDF download) both for the PDF and Print-on-Demand option. If you need the partiture and the parts in print, please, contact us by e-mail for an offer.

Product: PDF or Print on Demand
Included the following: Piano reduction (108 pages), Guitar part (36 pages), PDF-file with partiture and instrumental parts (443 pages)
Total: of 144 pages
Time: 23:00
Order number: BE-201006
ISMN 979-0-706816-28-9

Introduction to "Concerto Français":
It was a wonderful challenge to compose for guitar and a large modern symphony orchestra. It was achievable because the instrumental writing for the guitar in this work is very natural, and its main entrances and themes are distinguished clearly from the accompaniment. Listeners and performers alike will benefit from the unique richness of tone this creates.

The writing for the most part associates modality and tonality, while often becoming “hypertonal”. It is firmly rooted in dance and popular styles.

The clarity of construction is a direct tribute to the characteristically French music style and to Baroque composers such as Robert de Visée, while the impassioned expressions are a salute both to French romanticism and to the hispanicisms of Georges Bizet.

We have many splendid concertos for guitar, but few French. It was my goal, too, to glorify the French guitar tradition, from François Campion ( 1686 – 1747), Antoine de Lhoyer (1768 – 1852), Antoine Meissonnier (1783 – 1857), Joseph Meissonnier (1790 – 1850), Napoléon Coste (1805 – 1883), Alfred Cottin (1863 – 1923), and Jacques Tessarech (1862 – 1929), to Alexandre Tansman (1897 – 1986), Maurice Ohana (1913 – 1992) and other more recent contemporaries.

The "French Concerto" - presented here in the form of the fingered solo guitar part and the piano reduction of the orchestra - begins with a first movement in the solemn dotted rhythm of the Overture. The melodic themes feed off each other incessantly, in expressions as colorful as they are passionate, the atmosphere inexorably straining, until the ritual re-statement, intimate in tone, that closes the movement.

The second movement, allegro, is between a minuet and a scherzo: retaining the graceful lightness and dancing character of the first, but much more romantic in its tempo expressiveness, and emphatic phrasing.

The song-like slow movement is unprecedentedly placed in third position. Written in ternary form, and in dotted rhythms, this is the elegiac moment of the work, the melody blossoming through the use of tremolo.

The brilliant finale reiterates, in “hypertonal” spirals, modulations of its theme forged out of rapid descending chords – a descent into hell! It is counterbalanced by a very expressive second melodic motif full of hope.

The guitar plays a major role in the whole of the Concerto: initiating the movements and dialoguing with the percussion instruments, its cadences are particularly long and developed.

Standing out over the orchestra’s lightly and timbraly scored entrances, the instrument - as in the Aranjuez Concerto - “competes” perfectly with the modern symphony orchestra!

The length of this Concerto, at over 23 minutes, is unusual - guitar works more often being of only moderate length. However, the writing for the solo guitar is particularly suited to the instrument and does not present any major difficulties to the performer.

The main themes will charm and haunt listeners for a long time!

This major work is dedicated to the excellent performer Marcelo de la Puebla.

Read Chris Dumigans review of this piece here:
https://www.allclassicalguitar.co.uk/post/colette-mourey-concerto-francais-pour-guitar-et-orchestra-symphonique-reduction-pour-piano-gtr

Rubinstein-Mourey, Melody

Rubinstein-Mourey, Melody