Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein, making a great name for himself for his individual style, teams up for his second recording with German violist Tabea Zimmermann on the Myrios Classics label. The result is a pleasure from the first note to the last.
The first is Johannes Brahms’ 1894 Op. 120 Clarinet Sonata in F minor, for which he supplied a substitute viola part.
There is, to my ear, a luminous quality to hearing the piece played on a clarinet that vanishes with the viola. The result is something quieter, darker, more haunting — and deeply beautiful.
Gerstein and Zimmermann dig deeply but gently into their rich-sounding instruments, moving as one through the music’s shifting moods, part of the valedictory meditations of a great composer who drops crumbs of Bach throughout the piece to remind us where we’ve all come from.
The duo finds an elusive balance of stillness and movement that works nicely in the Brahms and is nothing short of magical in Franz Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, from 1823, which is usually played on a cello.
Here are two artists not interested in showing us what fine virtuosos they are; instead, they are sitting down with and for friends to share heartfelt thoughts.
The last piece — the 1886 A Major Violin Sonata by César Franck — is in many ways the most interesting, because Zimmermann plays the bulk of it using the violin’s notes. This makes the music at once totally familiar, yet completely different in character.
This is sound that’s more bronze than brass, more glowing ember than licking flame.
Zimmermann is a master of veiled power. Gerstein plays with care and delicacy — but never as less than a full partner with the viola.
For more details on this find, click here.
Here’s a substantial background video on the making of this album — in German, but with English subtitles:
John Terauds