Czech Chamber Music Society • Kirill Gerstein
Beethoven’s piano concertos are all gems; you can’t choose between them. We will avoid having to make the choice during his jubilee year by presenting all six piano concertos on two of our society’s programmes . In these works, which demand a natural symbiosis between the soloist and the orchestra, the popular pianist Kirill Gerstein will be leading the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard.
Programme
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 0 in E flat major, WoO 4
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 19
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
Performers
Kirill Gerstein piano
Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra
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Performers
Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra
“It is the fulfilment of a dream we shared with Jiří Bělohlávek: after two years of preparations, we are ushering in concerts of the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. This name does not stand for one particular ensemble; instead it represents a project in which the orchestra members will be performing in various chamber groups,” said David Mareček, Chief Executive Officer of the Czech Philharmonic, in the spring of 2018. Jiří Bělohlávek was convinced that it was healthy for the Czech Philharmonic to play in a smaller ensemble with a repertoire spanning the Baroque to the present, where the musicians can hone their intonation, phrasing, and collaboration as individuals within a whole group. The Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, consisting exclusively of the members of the Czech Philharmonic assembled for a specific occasion, was officially established in the Czech Philharmonic’s 123rd season. Since then, the ensemble has already prepared fifteen projects presented both during the orchestra’s regular season at the Rudolfinum and at festival appearances.
Kirill Gerstein piano, artistic director
Born in the territory of the former Soviet Union, the pianist Kirill Gerstein studied in the USA, Spain, and Hungary, and at present he lives in Berlin. Today an American citizen, he represents something like an intersection of the interpretive traditions that he absorbed while maturing as a pianist, taking inspiration from them to create a musical language of his own. Besides his geographical mobility, he also moves freely between historical periods: his repertoire includes works of the traditional canon and contemporary music. He also grew up with jazz.
It was jazz that took him to the Berklee College of Music as the youngest student in the school’s history at 14 years of age. Acting as an intermediary was the jazz legend Gary Burton, whom Gerstein had met in Saint Petersburg. In Boston, he studied jazz and classical piano for several years before deciding ultimately for the career of a classical pianist and heading for New York’s Manhattan School of Music. After graduating, he further broadened his interpretive horizons under Dmitri Bashkirov at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Madrid and under Ferenc Rados in Budapest. At that time, he began appearing on concert stages, helped by winning the famed Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv.
He built up the reputation of a world-class pianist known for advanced technique, intelligent interpretation, and careful reading of scores. As a soloist, he appears with the world’s top ensembles, in the 2023/24 season performing for example with the orchestras of the Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Zurich Tonhalle, the Orchestre national de France, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala and giving recitals at such venues as Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Konzerthaus.
He is known for interpreting contemporary music, having even used the money from the Gilmore Artist Award to commission new works. He is associated in particular with the composer Thomas Adès, who composed his Piano Concerto for Gerstein, whose recording of the work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra received a 2020 Grammy nomination and won a Gramophone Award. In 2021 they together received the International Classical Music Award for Gerstein’s recording of Adès’s solo piano compositions and his music for two pianos, which they recorded together.
Another piano concerto dedicated to Gerstein was written by Thomas Larcher. That is the work that Gerstein was to have performed in Prague with the Czech Philharmonic in 2021, but because of measures to the limit the spread of the Coronavirus, the concert was only streamed, and the programme was changed to Schumann’s Piano Concerto, which will be heard again today at the Rudolfinum. Gerstein is tied to the Czech Philharmonic by years of collaboration dating back to 2012 when the orchestra was still led by Jiří Bělohlávek, and continuing with many more visits to Prague, performances on tour in Europe and America, and a recording of Tchaikovsky’s piano concertos.
Gerstein is passing on his experience to piano students at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin and at the Kronberg Academy. Under the auspices of the latter institution, he has made a series of online seminars with the title “Kirill Gerstein invites…”, debating with such important figures from the world of music as Thomas Adès, Kaija Saariaho, and Sir Antonio Pappano.
Compositions
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 0 in E flat major, WoO 4
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B Flat Major, Op. 19
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote five piano concertos (a sixth remained unfinished). Advancements in piano design enabled him to enrich the solo part with new elements, and he also gave greater depth to the integration of ideas between the individual movements while expanding the harmonic language. The first sketches for the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, date from 1802, at the same time as the sketches for the Eroica Symphony, but his concentrated effort to write the concerto came in the first half of 1806. The work was first heard in March 1807 before a private audience at Prince Lobkowitz’s palace in Vienna. The public premiere took place on 22 December 1808 at the conclusion of the first half of Beethoven’s four-hour benefit concert at the Theater an der Wien, where it was heard along with the concert aria Ah, perfido!, the Fifth Symphony, the Sixth Symphony, part of the Mass in C major, and the Choral Fantasy. This was Beethoven’s last appearance as a piano soloist with orchestra; his worsening deafness prevented him from any more performing.
The concerto opens with the solo piano playing a calm, concentrated chordal idea that serves as a kind of motto for the entire work. It almost sounds like a spontaneous improvisation, a fleeting idea, from which a remarkable structure gradually emerges. The orchestra then takes up the opening motif and builds an exposition from it. When the soloist joins back in, the piano part again seems like an improvisation, but it immediately develops its full brilliance. The second theme alternates between the major and minor modes, and the piano asserts itself ever more strongly, then the dialogue between the soloist and orchestra climaxes with a solo cadenza. The main theme is then heard again, and the orchestra closes the movement. The second movement opens with an energetic unison of the orchestra and with contrasting, hesitant responses by the piano. According to the account of one of Beethoven’s contemporaries, the movement has a programmatic basis; it was meant to evoke the struggle of the legendary figure Orpheus against the underworld. In the rondo third movement, the composer again makes the impression of developing a fleeting idea. The piano part loses its soloistic character and becomes a part of the orchestral score.