Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

Program notes

About the Work

The world knows John Williams as the most celebrated film composer in history, the creator of the themes for Star Wars, Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List and so much more. Less widely known is his parallel life as a composer of concert music: concertos for violin, cello, flute, oboe, horn, tuba and harp, written for many of the world’s leading players. This Piano Concerto, receiving its Dutch premiere tonight, is one of his very latest works, and it came about through a charming exchange. Williams had mentioned to friends that he might write a piano concerto, and the pianist Emanuel Ax told him: if you write it, I will play it. Williams took up the challenge: he began the piece in 2022 and completed it for Ax, who gave the world premiere at Tanglewood on 26 July 2025, with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Williams, then ninety-three, was present to hear it.

The concerto is, in Williams’s own description, a ‘proper’ concerto in the classical three-movement, fast–slow–fast design: not a film score for piano, but a fully-fledged addition to the concert repertoire. Yet it carries the fingerprints of its composer’s whole musical life: the luminous orchestration, the rhythmic vitality, and a deep affection for the great jazz pianists Williams loved in his own youth as a working pianist. He has spoken of invoking the spirits of Art Tatum, Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson, and the solo writing has a freedom and a glinting harmonic colour that nod to that world while remaining wholly Williams.

For Amsterdam audiences this is a rare chance to hear brand-new music by a living legend, played by the very pianist for whom it was written, a piece still fresh from its first performances, finding its place in the world.

What to Listen For

Because the concerto is so new, come to it with open ears rather than expectations. Williams follows the time-honoured fast–slow–fast plan, so listen for the architecture: an opening movement of bustling energy and dialogue between piano and orchestra; a central slow movement that is the lyrical core; and a finale that lets the soloist off the leash.

Keep your ear out for the jazz inflections Williams has woven in: the supple, improvisatory feel of certain solo passages, the bluesy harmonic shadings, the rhythmic snap that recalls the great jazz pianists rather than the Romantic virtuoso tradition. And listen, as always with Williams, to the orchestra: even in a concert work he is one of the supreme orchestrators alive, and the interplay of piano with woodwind, harp, percussion and strings is full of the iridescent colour that has thrilled audiences in the cinema for sixty years. Above all, notice the rapport between soloist and music. This is Emanuel Ax playing a concerto shaped around his own pianism, a true collaboration between composer and performer.