Kirill Gerstein
Myrios classics are to release Kirill Gerstein’s live performance of Busoni’s Piano Concerto
“We did not lose a human being, but a value,” wrote Kurt Weill after Busoni’s death, calling him a “spiritual European of the future.”
Myrios classics are to release Kirill Gerstein’s live performance of Busoni’s Piano Concerto. Available from 22nd February, Gerstein performed the monumental concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sakari Oramo back in March 2017. The New York Times described their performance as, “…entirely wonderful through the whole phantasmagoric, gargantuan, mystifying, hilarious thing, Mr. Gerstein – playing with the straightest of faces under the baton of Sakari Oramo – barely mopped his brow.”
Incidentally, Kirrill appeared on the cover of issue 83 of Pianist. Inside, he talks about his passion for classical, and how he incorporated his jazz roots into his playing.
Like its creator, Ferruccio Dante Michelangelo Benvenuto Busoni, the Piano Concerto has defied classification ever since Busoni gave the world première of the piece in Berlin in 1904. As well as its reputation as both the grandest and most virtuosic work in the piano repertoire, it is generally regarded as a superhuman feat for soloist, conductor and orchestra.
This live recording captures the first outing of the work in the Boston Symphony's 137-year history.
Pre-order Kirill Gerstein's performance of Busoni's Piano Concerto below.