Russian-born American pianist Kirill Gerstein performed his second solo recital at Koerner Hall on Sunday afternoon, where he showed off remarkable technique and silken touch in both traditional art music as well as jazz.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
Don’t call this personable 30-something a crossover artist, though. Crossover artists move from one genre to another but Gerstein, backed up by a declaration to that effect from the stage, simply doesn’t believe there should be boundaries between some musical genres.
His choice of programme in the second half of his solo recital eloquently illustrated his point with intelligent interweaving of pieces by Brad Mehldau, György Ligeti and George Gershwin (via late pianistic showman Earl Wild).
The concert opened with traditional classical fare by Joseph Haydn and Modest Mussorgsky, with the latter composer’s well-known 1874 suite Pictures at an Exhibition and Variations on a Melancholy Theme commissioned in 2011 by Gerstein from Mehldau providing the afternoon’s artistic ballast.
The newer, jazzier music proved to be the overall highlight, kept aloft by the pianist’s flawless technique and generally light touch.
The older music fared less well, with the Mussorgsky work being the least satisfying of all.
For most pianists, Pictures at an Exhibition is first and foremost a technical challenge. Whoever tackles the piece needs either gigantic hands or a whole toolbox full of technical tricks to smooth the progression of great fistfuls of notes. Thanks to his remarkable physical skills, this stroll through an art show was a proverbial walk in the park.
Here as in all of the other pieces on the programme, Gerstein impressed with a gossamer touch, achieving gorgeous tone from a minimum of force applied to each piano key.
However, the pianist focused on so much detail in the Pictures that we lost a sense of movement as well as a wider perspective. It was like walking through an AGO gallery with a microscope — fascinating, colourful, often even revelatory, but lacking cohesive force.
Haydn’s Andante and Variations in F Minor was notable for its fleetness and clarity, but its only real artistic purpose on this programme was to provide an 18th century mirror for Mehldau’s much more substantial work.
The modern jazz master’s piece is long, at half-an-hour, and occasionally threatens to run out of thematic material. But every time I thought Mehldau had used up his last drop of creative juice, he would find some little clever twist to keep us — and his able interpreter — going.
Two Études of Ligeti’s — “Fanfares” and “Arc-en-ciel” (Rainbows) — gave Gerstein yet another opportunity to dazzle with his fingerwork, while Wild’s reminiscences of Gershwin’s “Somebody Loves Me” and “I Got Rhythm” were extravagant cream-puffery at its most endearing.
Gerstein plays as if he really, really loves the act of making music as much as he loves savouring the sounds coming from the piano. His programming also showed keen awareness of thematic relationships on many levels. But somehow, the whole came ever so slightly shy of adding up to a sum of its considerable parts.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
