Czech Philharmonic • Alan Gilbert

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.

“Today it’s our job—musicians and the public alike—to write the next chapter in music history together: to play and listen to the music of our time, always in search of works that will last”, says the conductor Alan Gilbert, who has been devoting himself systematically for years to performing the works of contemporary composers. He is active in Europe and the USA, and we find him in concert halls as, among other things, the chief conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra or (until 2017) the music director of the New York Philharmonic, and in famed opera houses. He won a Grammy for the recording of his debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera (with opera Doctor Atomic by John Adams in 2008).

A native of New York, he received the best musical education, studying first at Harvard University while adding variety to his studies with violin lessons at the New England Conservatory of Music. Later, he studied conducting at the Curtis Institute, which even conferred an honorary doctorate on him in 2010, and at the Juilliard School under the guidance of Otto-Werner Mueller. Professional engagements took him from the Cleveland Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera to the New York Philharmonic, becoming that orchestra’s music director in 2009. He was responsible for a major transformation of that already prestigious orchestra, especially in the direction of performing contemporary music, to which he devoted two whole concert series. Later, he pushed through a similar concept with Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, of which he became the chief conductor in 2019: a biennale titled “Elbphilharmonie Visions”, with performances of music by composers of the 21st century in the course of ten days in February 2023. Last season, Gilbert led the orchestra in the world premiere of the violin concerto The Elements written by five composers brought together by one soloist, Joshua Bell, the orchestra’s artist-in-residence at the time.

Besides truly contemporary music, for the promotion of which he received the Ditson Conductor’s Award from Columbia University in 2011, Alan Gilbert also enjoys devoting himself to music of the 20th century. He is an advocate of the works of Carl Nielsen, whose symphonies he has also recorded with the New York Philharmonic. “Nielsen’s music follows the tradition of Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky, but with peculiar Danish fingerprints. It is entirely accessible, fresh, compelling, and it simply speaks to people”, says Gilbert, who is convinced that the works of that Danish composer should appear more often on the programmes of the world’s orchestras. Although in 2014 the New York Classical Review declared that “No one plays Nielsen better than Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic”, Gilbert has also enjoyed success with the composer’s works elsewhere, such as with the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic. 

Besides holding permanent engagements, Alan Gilbert also collaborates with other important orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As an opera conductor, besides appearing at the Metropolitan Opera, he has also introduced himself, for example, at Dresden’s Semperoper and at Milan’s La Scala. Since the spring of 2021, he has been the music director of the Royal Swedish Opera, where he performed Strauss’s Elektra and Wagner’s Parsifal last season. Recently, the King of Sweden appointed him as the Royal Court Kapellmeister. 

Allegro affettuoso
Intermezzo: Andantino grazioso 
Allegro vivace

Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 is the only piano concerto by Robert Schumann. It came into being in a rather complicated way. In 1841 Schumann composed Fantasy (Phantasie) in A minor for Piano and Orchestra, but publishers and concert agents did not show as much interest in it as the composer had hoped. Four years later (partly at the urging of his wife, piano virtuoso Clara Schumann), he decided to expand it into a piano concerto. The Fantasy became the first movement, to which Schumann added second and third movements – Intermezzo and Allegro vivace. The complete work was premiered on 1 January 1846 by Clara Schumann as a soloist and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Ferdinand Hiller, to whom Schumann dedicated the work.

In comparison to other piano concertos of the time, Schumann’s concerto is instantly recognized as having an orchestral character. He himself wrote about it in a letter to his wife: “I have already told you about my concerto: it is a cross between a symphony, a concerto, and a grand sonata. It is clear that I cannot write a concerto for the virtuoso; I must think of something else.” The piano part together with the orchestra forms a closely interconnected whole. Listeners and critics, who were accustomed to virtuoso pieces in which the orchestra usually played only an accompanying role, greatly appreciated the concerto. But there were also those like Franz Liszt, who described the work as “a piano concerto without a piano”.

From the very beginning, the first movement is characterized by sharp changes of tempos and moods. The orchestra storms in, and this is followed by descending cascades of piano chords contrasted with a mournful melody sung by oboes, immediately repeated by the piano. The opening theme is the main building material of the whole movement. The monumental cadenza was written by Schumann himself. The brief middle movement (Intermezzo: Andante grazioso) is a lyrical dialogue between the piano and orchestra. The soloist again presents the main theme of the first movement, which moves without pause into the final movement. The energetic Allegro vivace produces a triumphant and joyful atmosphere and is characterized by a number of impressive rhythmic experiments.