Kirill Petrenko and Kirill Gerstein at the Waldbühne

For the Waldbühne concert, the last performance before the orchestra takes its summer break, chief conductor Kirill Petrenko has put together an exciting programme of Russian music with compositions by Anatoly Lyadov, Sergei Rachmaninov and Modest Mussorgsky.

Lyadov, whom his teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov described as having an “alert mind, a good heart and a great musical talent”, but also as being “disastrously lazy”, only completed a very modest number of mostly short orchestral and piano pieces. The symphonic poem Kikimora, which tells the tale of a wicked witch, is characterised by a mysterious atmosphere in a beguilingly sensual sound.

Modest Mussorgsky’s composition Pictures at an Exhibition is perhaps the most famous work in the history of music that was demonstrably inspired by the visual arts. The piano cycle, later brilliantly orchestrated by Maurice Ravel, depicts a walk through a museum. Mussorgsky imaginatively and vividly translates the pictures he contemplates into tone paintings, bringing them to life.

An outstanding pianist whose playing forges a link between the Russian, American and Central European musical traditions – this is true not only of Kirill Gerstein, but also of Sergei Rachmaninov. With his late-Romantic Second Piano Concerto, Gerstein will have another opportunity at the Waldbühne this evening to demonstrate his astonishing virtuosity, his sense of tonal colour and his lyrical creative power.

Berliner Philharmoniker

Kirill Petrenko

Kirill Gerstein