Kirill Gerstein: Alchemy

All musicians are on a quest for that elusive magic, when stars align and everything goes exactly to plan. The composer Ferruccio Busoni called this musical alchemy “sonorous air”—and here, pianist Kirill Gerstein shares examples of what he believes is musicmaking of rare perfection. The great pianist Vladimir Horowitz tried to recreate those perfect circumstances time and time again by always eating fresh Dover sole and asparagus the night before a concert. It seems to have worked—“Poulenc said of Horowitz that ‘nobody plays me better’”, reveals Gerstein. “This live recording from Carnegie Hall of an intermezzo shows what he must have meant.” Had he been alive, Brahms may well have said the same about Edwin Fischer, whose performance of the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 2, says Gerstein, “is perhaps closest to the ‘best’ performance of this piece.” There’s an added poignancy, too, as the recording was made from one of the final performances in Berlin’s Alte Philharmonie concert hall, before it was bombed in World War II. Equally poignant is the recording of the then 85-year-old pianist Wilhelm Backhaus’ very last recital, in 1969. “Having suffered a heart attack during the concert,” says Gerstein, “Backhaus refused to stop, and played a final encore by Franz Schubert.” Elsewhere, Gerstein highlights Sergei Rachmaninoff and Fritz Kreisler’s wonderful Grieg, Benno Moiseiwitsch’s sparkling Mendelssohn and a recording of Fauré’s Requiem by the composer’s pupil Nadia Boulanger, heard here in her conducting debut with the New York Philharmonic. There are performances by Gerstein himself, too, including one with his mentor, the pianist Ferenc Rados, of Mozart. And there’s a world premiere. “Premiering a new piece is a magic moment,” says Gerstein. “Thomas Adès wrote his Piano Concerto for me, and this recording captures the first time the composition had its encounter with an audience.”