Rachmaninoff: 王羽佳

The Berliner Philharmoniker’s contribution to the great Russian composer’s anniversary year places a landmark performance of his perennially popular C minor Concerto by Kirill Gerstein and Kirill Petrenko in the illuminating context of his solo music.

Paul Klee’s picture Ad marginem provides inspiration and context for the present programme and is a visual guide to performance for us as Talistrio: a radiant red circle in the middle, while around it - driven back to the margin - living creatures and abstract objects emerge. It is surely this mixture of melancholy and hope that links all the works listed below, be it Casella’s neoclassical dance on the volcano from the early 20th century, Tchaikovsky’s death and its shattering inspirational impulse upon the young Rachmaninoff, or the Japanese child scene at sunset.

Pourquoi Rachmaninoff est-il devenu une légende? Comment a-t-il pu symboliser la perfection technique pour des générations entières de pianistes? Façade roucoulante d'une carrière médiatique au cours de sa vie américaine ? Intime personnalité développée de sa Russie natale?

A selection of lucid, intimate, and short-from Rachmaninoff works, interpreted with pinpoint technical precision.

Yuja Wang joins her close friend and collaborator Gautier Capuçon to present a new recording of Rachmaninoff’s monumental Sonata for Piano and Cello. In four movements the sonata is filled with the character so typical of Russia’s Romantic era. Few composers before Rachmaninoff could have so deeply explored the cello’s capacity for expressive tenderness and intensity.

Pianist Kyra Zhao says that "Vibrant, just like the title sounds, is a colorful excursion taking the listener's ear on a journey from the dreamy seashore to the roaring thunder and from intimate friendship encounters to triumphant marches." The works by Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and Schumann are essential repertoire of the Romantic to the early 20th century era. Hailed by New York Concert Review as "A born performer" pianist Kyra Xuerong Zhao has achieved an international reputation in many countries as a concert pianist. She won top prizes at the Seattle International Piano Competition, Rome Chopin International Piano Competition, and the Quebec International Music Awards, among many others. She has performed recitals, concertos, and chamber concerts in the most prestigious halls in the world. A graduate of Boston University, Yale, and the Mannes School of Music, she is currently on the faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music.