Stanič’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is conceived as a single-movement work, whose internal structure is built around an initial musical idea: the sonic pulsation of tonal surfaces or the fluctuation of amplitude in individual sound information, shifting between phases of softness and loudness. The piano part is, at times, highly virtuosic and technically demanding; in its antiphase, it functions as an accompaniment to the orchestra. In these sections, the work could just as well be understood as a Concerto for Orchestra and Piano.

The composition develops its cyclical musical potential through sonic and timbral effects, characterized by extended performance techniques in the orchestral instruments and a relatively diverse array of percussion. At certain points, the solo part gives way to aleatoric elements, distancing itself from metric regularity—an approach also shared by some of the orchestral instruments.

Its opposite extreme lies in isorhythmic, squarely measured music, emphasized by the inclusion of hammer and anvil. As in many of Stanič’s works from the past decade, the concerto is rich in onomatopoeia: animal sounds (with a recurring motif of majestic donkey braying), tinnitus-like ringing or high-pitched noise that trails the loudest moment into silence, and a paragram of the biblical Pater Noster combined with the ticking of a wall clock.

There are also simulations of reverse playback (as if spinning a vinyl record backwards), sonic “bending” (as heard on fast-spinning turntables), and more. The solo piano is predominantly treated as a percussion instrument, and its speed of execution reminds us of the psychoacoustic phenomenon where, when a melodic line is played fast enough, it merges into a shifting sound plane—the listener can no longer discern individual tones, only a moving curtain of sound.

At certain points, the harmonic material includes clear tonal chords—not as functional tonality, but as momentary glimpses. These acoustic “retouches” are also represented by numerous glissandi in the strings, brass, and winds.