Gramophone Podcast

MUSIC IN TIME OF WAR - Available now!

MUSIC IN TIME OF WAR – Release Date April 12, 2024

Spotlight Artist at LSO

“My heart is like ruined homes, Broken beams and shaken pillars….”

Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik - Quarterly Critic’s Choice

Dazzling Gershwin

Rachmaninoff No.1 in Berlin & Frankfurt

Ventures

Ventures

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni, the visionary Italian composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, has been obsessing me from the age of ten, when I first read a book about him by G. Kogan. Ever since, I have been studying his recordings, reading his writings and letters, learning and performing his music. One of the highlights for me has been playing Busoni’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica with Sir Andras Schiff. Here is an excerpt of our performance from the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival a few years ago:

Busoni Piano Concerto

I grew up hearing Busoni’s piano concerto in recordings by John Ogdon and Garrick Ohlsson and it was always on my dream list of pieces to play. A couple of years ago the opportunity came to perform the concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Boston was one of the cities where Busoni taught and it was the starting point of his career in the US. It was particularly significant and heart-warming that Sakari Oramo agreed to conduct. Sakari and I have played together a number of times and he feels close to Busoni’s music. Busoni is important in the history of Finnish music, and the Sibelius academy, where Sakari studied and now teaches, was another place where Busoni mentored.

Our concerts in Boston were captured for the radio. Listening to the recordings some months later I had the feeling that we could publish it as an album. In a studio setting, I couldn’t hope to replicate the concert adrenaline, acoustics of Boston’s Symphony Hall and the luxury of the orchestral sound of the BSO led by Sakari in this most symphonic concerto. myrios classics agreed to release it and also allowed me to put together an 88 page booklet to accompany the physical release. Two Busoni experts, Larry Sitsky and Albrecht Riethmueller kindly contributed articles on Busoni’s piano music and his creative arc, and the Busoni archive at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin provided some previously unpublished photographs and illustrations.

Next season, Garrick Ohlsson and I are touring in the US, and Fantasia Contrappuntistica is again on the programme. In the future seasons, I am planning retrospective series about Busoni and his world in selected cities central to Busoni’s life.

Ferruccio Busoni, the visionary Italian composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, has been obsessing me from the age of ten, when I first read a book about him by G. Kogan. Ever since, I have been studying his recordings, reading his writings and letters, learning and performing his music. One of the highlights for me has been playing Busoni’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica with Sir Andras Schiff. Here is an excerpt of our performance from the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival a few years ago:

I grew up hearing Busoni’s piano concerto in recordings by John Ogdon and Garrick Ohlsson and it was always on my dream list of pieces to play. A couple of years ago the opportunity came to perform the concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Boston was one of the cities where Busoni taught and it was the starting point of his career in the US. It was particularly significant and heart-warming that Sakari Oramo agreed to conduct. Sakari and I have played together a number of times and he feels close to Busoni’s music. Busoni is important in the history of Finnish music, and the Sibelius academy, where Sakari studied and now teaches, was another place where Busoni mentored.

Our concerts in Boston were captured for the radio. Listening to the recordings some months later I had the feeling that we could publish it as an album. In a studio setting, I couldn’t hope to replicate the concert adrenaline, acoustics of Boston’s Symphony Hall and the luxury of the orchestral sound of the BSO led by Sakari in this most symphonic concerto. myrios classics agreed to release it and also allowed me to put together an 88 page booklet to accompany the physical release. Two Busoni experts, Larry Sitsky and Albrecht Riethmueller kindly contributed articles on Busoni’s piano music and his creative arc, and the Busoni archive at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin provided some previously unpublished photographs and illustrations.

Next season, Garrick Ohlsson and I are touring in the US, and Fantasia Contrappuntistica is again on the programme. In the future seasons, I am planning retrospective series about Busoni and his world in selected cities central to Busoni’s life.

Busoni Piano Concerto

NEWS

Listen to Kirill in conversation with Gramophone magazine Chief Editor James Jolly about "Music in Time of War"

Digital Release

"I have always believed that our understanding of a piece of music cannot be divorced from the historical and cultural setting in which it was created and received. That is perhaps especially true of the works in this album."

Music in Time of War, the new double-album from pianist Kirill Gerstein, places the music of Komitas, pioneer of ethnomusicology and founder of the Armenian national school of music, alongside that of Claude Debussy, a seminal composer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who held a deep admiration of Komitas’s music. Both composers were profoundly affected by the implosion of their worlds – Komitas by the Armenian Genocide, Debussy by the First World War – and their music reflects a close emotional alignment. Music in Time of War grew from Gerstein’s fascination with music’s power to reflect a narrative. The project will be released as a double CD album and will be accompanied by a hardcover book containing a series of illustrations and detailed essays in three languages commissioned by the pianist.

Gerstein pairs Debussy’s 12 Études from 1915 and Komitas’s Armenian Dances for piano, composed the following year, and includes a selection of Debussy’s late piano pieces composed to raise funds for the war. The artists featured on the album include Armenian soprano Ruzan Mantashyan, and pianists Thomas Adès and Katia Skanavi – they join Gerstein in a selection of works for voice and piano, piano four hands as well as for two pianos. Accompanying the recording are four in-depth essays from historians Annette Becker and Khatchig Mouradian, musicologist Artur Avanesov and composer Heinz Holliger, that explore the impact of war and genocide on society, and the reaction of artists to such events. These essays give socio-historical context to the music of Debussy and Komitas, and their response to creating in times of catastrophe.

Music in Time of War epitomizes both Kirill Gerstein‘s creative curiosity and his insightful approach to curating projects.

Recorded during 2021 at the Konzerthaus Wien, Siemens Villa Berlin and at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York.

Pianist Kirill Gerstein joins the London Symphony Orchestra throughout the 2023/24 season as Spotlight Artist, playing four concertos that showcase different dimensions of his artistry.

‘I am deeply honoured to have been chosen as a Spotlight Artist for the LSO’s 2023/24 season. From my initial experience with the Orchestra at the Paris Philharmonie to our concert performances in London and filming during the pandemic, have always been moved by the artistry and passion of the musicians. Collaborating with Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Antonio Pappano, and Susanna Mälkki in music by Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Ades and Gershwin is inspiring and, together, the opportunity to share the thrill of these compositions with our listeners in London and on tour is a joyful gift.’

On Komitas' birthday, in solidarity with the Armenian people:

These words from Komitas’s “Antuni” capture the loss, displacement and trauma that haunts Armenians today as ethnic cleansing in Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh has forced more than 100,000 out of their ancestral lands. We share this recording in solidarity with the Armenian nation.

With Ruzan Mantashyan, soprano

Antuni / Homeless

My heart looks like shattered homes,
Broken are pillars and timbers asunder.
Wild birds will nest in those ruins…
To reach the river, jump in it I wish,
And to become food for the fry of fish.
Ah, your home is destroyed!
I’ve seen Black sea with the white around,
The waves were beating, yet unable to mix them together,
Who has ever seen an ironic sea?
A homeless’ heart is In bewildered state,
Oh, don’t be my heart darkened so much, Ah, your home is destroyed!

The recording project to pair the late music of Debussy with Komitas’ compositions stemming from the horrors of World War 1 and the Armenian Genocide started two years ago. We did not want to imagine that it would poignantly become even more relevant due to the tragic events unfolding in September 2023.

"It may be hard to believe with a work as often played as the second Rachmaninoff concerto, but there really is something new to discover here: This recording is audibly different from the many new concert recordings that were released for the “Rachmaninoff Year” in 2023 are. "

The Rachmaninoff 150 album has just been awarded by the German “Quarterly Critic’s Choice” in the category “Orchestral Music & Concertos”, with the following praising words: “It may be hard to believe with a work as widely played as the second Rachmaninoff concerto, but there really is something new to discover here: This recording is audibly different from the many new concert recordings that were released for the “Rachmaninoff Year” in 2023 are. Elegant and almost light, powerful without being ostentatious and ostentatious, astonishingly bright in its timbres and highly intelligent in the interaction between soloist and orchestra.
The two Kirills – Gerstein and Petrenko – confidently refute all prejudices against the composer and his work, which unfortunately still exist.”

"Kirill Gerstein was soloist in a phenomenal performance of the Piano Concerto. Gerstein, known for his nonchalant virtuosity and vivid intellect in Liszt or Tchaikovsky, is also a skilled jazzer."

Kirill Gerstein’s performance of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, with Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra was praised by many critics, read a few here:
Financial Times
The Telegraph
The Guardian
inews.uk

Berlin & Frankfurt

Kirill Gerstein’s next encounter with Robin Ticciati and the DSO Berlin is coming up, with two concerts at the Berlin Philharmonie and one concert at Alte Oper Frankfurt.