Concerto for Orchestra No. 2 (Stucky)

The Second Concerto for Orchestra is a concerto for orchestra by the American composer Steven Stucky. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic while Stucky was their composer-in-residence for the inaugural season of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was completed in 2003 and was first performed on March 12, 2004, with the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The piece was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Stucky conceived the piece as a celebration of his musical influences. Thus, the work freely references passages from many previous classical works. In 2003, Stucky elaborated:

The first movement, for example, echoes a texture from the first movement of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G (the two-handed one), as well as Oliver Knussen's Flourish with Fireworks and in turn the piece Knussen himself was honoring, Stravinsky's Fireworks. Later in the movement, there are admiring glances at orchestral textures from two Sibelius works, En saga and the first movement of the Third Symphony. The second movement, too, has souvenirs from Debussy's La Mer, Brahms's E-flat clarinet (or viola) sonata, Stravinsky's Petrushka, and other works. The finale even borrows briefly from an earlier orchestral work of mine, Son et lumière. [...] What does this all mean for listeners and performers — for the "end users" of the piece? Surely not that they should approach my new concerto as if it were a treasure hunt or a music history lecture, straining to catch musical souvenirs as they go by. (A good way to ruin a concert!) Instead, I hope that knowing something about my private hopes and allegiances can help others feel the security and freedom to listen and play their very best.

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