This relatively brief (fifteen minute) piano concerto in one movement grew out of a friendship that began during student days. William Alwyn (1905-1985) became an important composer in Britain, writing well crafted and melodious tonal—even late Romantic—works that grew out of the "English Pastoral" tradition of which his teacher Gustav Holst was a part.

This concerto seems to be modeled after a kind of cross between Sergey Prokofiev's First Concerto and Arnold Bax's approach to symphonic form, and shares with Bax a similar sense of Romantic passion triggered by English landscapes. These are, however, landscapes that are less wild than Bax's preferred western sea cliffs.

Alwyn was a rapid developer, musically. He started at the Royal Academy of Music before he was 18. While he was there he formed a close friendship with the talented piano student Clifford Curzon. On graduation, Alwyn's gifts and skills were so marked that he was offered (and accepted) a professorship in composition at the Royal Academy, while Curzon went out into the concert world and began an illustrious career.

Late in the 1920s Alwyn went to hear one of Curzon's recitals, which included some of Alwyn's piano pieces. In writing an appreciative note (and congratulating him on the rest of the recital, which included the immensely difficult Liszt Sonata). He also told Curzon he left after the concert " ... consumed with the desire to write a big work for you—something really worthy of your ability."

Alwyn considered the resulting First Piano Concerto to be the most adventuresome of his early works, probably a reference to its turbulent emotionalism. The first performance occurred on December 30, 1931, with Curzon at the keyboard and Alwyn conducting.

Similarly to the Prokofiev First Concerto already mentioned, the work is a fifteen-minute work in a single-movement for that breaks down into sections corresponding to the separate movements of a standard piano concerto, with one important addition. An introduction presents a surging and rhythmic theme. Then there is a section that corresponds to the first movement proper, a curtailed sonata-allegro movement with two contrasting themes, the second of which turns out to be the surging theme from the introduction. Where a standard first movement would have a development section, there is instead, an Adagio tranquillo slow movement, which serves as the development.

This section is mainly quiet, but builds in power and passion until the fast section returns, recapitulating the two themes. Then comes an addition to the standard concerto form derived from Bax's symphonies: An epilogue (Adagio molto e tranquillo) in which the turbulence of the opening them winds down into a profound sense of calm, which, daringly, is the mood in which the whole work ends.

© Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide