Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 9 (1958)
I. Moderately Fast — Decisive
II. Elegy: Andante [10:02]
III. Finale [18:21]
Karen Keys, piano
Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra
Guy Fraser Harrison
John La Montaine, though known among his professional colleagues for a decade as a highly gifted pianist, came into national prominence as a composer only in 1958, when the Piano Concerto recorded here received its world premiere on November 25 of that year with Jorge Bolet as soloist and the National Symphony conducted by Howard Mitchell. The music had been commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra under a grant from the Ford Foundation, and in 1959 the score was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. This CRI recording was done under the terms of a 1962 award to Mr. La Montaine from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The reasons for the deep impression made by the Concerto on both lay listeners and on critics and professionals is not hard to discover; for in common with his senior colleague, Samuel Barber, La Montaine has displayed in his music a flair for intensely dramatic lyrical utterance in combination with virtuosic effectiveness in the best sense of the word that makes for surefire listener impact. For a contemporary composer to accomplish such a feat in a large-scale piece, sticking within a relatively traditional frame-work, and avoiding the slightest taint of the meretricious is a feat of no mean order, and one attainable only by a composer whose stylistic persuasions are backed by a solidity of craftsmanship that has become second nature. In this connection, it is sufficient to mention that Mr. La Montaine’s training, after studies in Chicago, was received from such august institutions as the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School, as well as from Nadia Boulanger.
Regarding the musical form and content of Mr. La Montaine’s Piano Concerto, the publisher has supplied a succinct and valid summation: "The Concerto affirms both the lyric and virtuoso capabilities of the piano. The first movement is bold and decisive, classic in form, romantic in content. The second movement is slow and introspective, rising to an overwhelming climax. It is an elegy in memory of the composer’s sister, Isabel La Montaine. The Finale, in quadruple meter, is brilliant, rhythmic and march-like, interrupted twice by an extended songful passage of great intensity in triple meter. All the thematic and passage material of the final movement is derived from the opening of the first movement." [CRI SD189]
Art by Xenia Hausner
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 9 (1958)
I. Moderately Fast — Decisive
II. Elegy: Andante [10:02]
III. Finale [18:21]
Karen Keys, piano
Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra
Guy Fraser Harrison
John La Montaine, though known among his professional colleagues for a decade as a highly gifted pianist, came into national prominence as a composer only in 1958, when the Piano Concerto recorded here received its world premiere on November 25 of that year with Jorge Bolet as soloist and the National Symphony conducted by Howard Mitchell. The music had been commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra under a grant from the Ford Foundation, and in 1959 the score was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. This CRI recording was done under the terms of a 1962 award to Mr. La Montaine from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The reasons for the deep impression made by the Concerto on both lay listeners and on critics and professionals is not hard to discover; for in common with his senior colleague, Samuel Barber, La Montaine has displayed in his music a flair for intensely dramatic lyrical utterance in combination with virtuosic effectiveness in the best sense of the word that makes for surefire listener impact. For a contemporary composer to accomplish such a feat in a large-scale piece, sticking within a relatively traditional frame-work, and avoiding the slightest taint of the meretricious is a feat of no mean order, and one attainable only by a composer whose stylistic persuasions are backed by a solidity of craftsmanship that has become second nature. In this connection, it is sufficient to mention that Mr. La Montaine’s training, after studies in Chicago, was received from such august institutions as the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School, as well as from Nadia Boulanger.
Regarding the musical form and content of Mr. La Montaine’s Piano Concerto, the publisher has supplied a succinct and valid summation: "The Concerto affirms both the lyric and virtuoso capabilities of the piano. The first movement is bold and decisive, classic in form, romantic in content. The second movement is slow and introspective, rising to an overwhelming climax. It is an elegy in memory of the composer’s sister, Isabel La Montaine. The Finale, in quadruple meter, is brilliant, rhythmic and march-like, interrupted twice by an extended songful passage of great intensity in triple meter. All the thematic and passage material of the final movement is derived from the opening of the first movement." [CRI SD189]
Art by Xenia Hausner
