Piano Concerto

Dedicated to my dear friend and musical colleague Seong-Jin Cho.

In his twenties, Robert Schumann was deeply moved by Jean Paul’s Romantic novel Flegeljahre. The contrasting personalities of the twin brothers, Vult and Walt, inspired Schumann to create two opposing alter egos of his own: the dreamy, introspective Eusebius and the impulsive, tempestuous Florestan. He wrote to Clara as follows:

Florestan den Wilden,
Eusebius den Milden,
Tränen und Flammen
Nimm sie zusammen
In mir beide
Den Schmerz und die Freude.

These two contrasting alter egos would go on to appear throughout Schumann’s music – especially his piano works – playing distinct and vital roles. Yet, it is important to remember that this duality, or doubleness, was neither solely Schumann’s invention, nor his exclusive domain. Rather, it is a universal aspect of human nature – perhaps even of nature itself.

My Piano Concerto also begins with this idea of universal duality or contradiction. Musically speaking, it is an experiment in weaving together highly contrasting musical elements, whether contrapuntal or harmonic, tonal or atonal. More broadly, it serves as a self-portrait of myself as both a composer and a human being. It is also, in a wider sense, an exploration of human nature. (We often witness uncontrollable darkness within ourselves. At least I do.)

The Piano Concerto consists of three movements. On the surface, it seems to follow the classical concerto format – sonata form in the first movement, ternary form in the second, and a rondo in the third – but each of these structures is severely distorted and deconstructed.

The first movement is a homage to Schumann, my personal favourite composer of piano music. I created two main themes by quoting – though in heavily skewed form – two musical motifs from Schumann’s piano works that symbolize Florestan and Eusebius respectively. These themes undergo constant transformation and development, until their original forms are almost entirely obliterated. At that moment of near-erasure, the Eusebius theme – i.e., the second theme in its original form – finally appears, and the movement concludes in E-flat major.

The second movement is a funeral march: extremely dark, sorrowful, and filled with cries of anguish. Toward the end of this movement, the music shifts directly attacca into the third movement, which is written with completely different harmonic material and conveys a sense of affirmation and joy, standing in total contrast to the second. Materials from the first and second movements reappear in this ‘twisted rondo’ and are restructured and juxtaposed in entirely new ways. It’s as if one were dreaming a strange, surreal dream – part nightmare, part comedy; part farce, part tragedy.

Donghoon Shin, 2025