Kirill Gerstein

His recital captures the spirit of the dance and the heady perfume of music inspired by flowers. The Romantic century provides the structure in this inspired musical planting plan; Schumann’s scenes from a masked ball and the whirling decadence of Ravel’s unstable, unstoppable waltz. Grainger’s virtuosic transcription from Tchaikovsky’s ballet score thrills and delights, while fragile and enigmatic miniatures from our own time – music by Adès, Kurtág and Coll – peep through the programme’s foliage like rare and exotic blooms. The Coll work, Two Waltzes Toward Civilisation (after Lorca’s Poet in New York), was actually commissioned by John Kongsgaard and Chamber Music in Napa Valley for Gerstein himself.