Piano Concerto

British composer Michael Tippett composed his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra between 1953 and 1955 on a commission from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The overall character of the work was influenced by the composer's hearing German pianist Walter Gieseking rehearse Ludwig van Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto in 1950. Its musical content, while influenced by this concerto, was also shaped largely by Tippett's opera The Midsummer Marriage, which he had completed in 1952.