It’s one of the most notoriously difficult piano cycles in the classical canon, an undertaking requiring remarkable physical endurance and mental stamina – as well, of course, as technical prowess.
It is so tricky, in fact, that even a virtuoso of the calibre of Russian pianist Kirill Gerstein had to think twice before taking on Franz Liszt's Transcendental Études.
“Honestly, when I started looking at this work I genuinely didn’t know if I could accomplish it,” he says. “But mountain peaks have always tempted people to try to scale them and it was a challenge I loved taking on. It became a personal journey.”
The first step on that journey was a concert in New York last year, at which The New York Times marvelled at his "brilliance and command … Mr Gerstein's technique [stood up] to Liszt's most devilish challenges. The audience seemed stunned, deliriously so".
A year later, his album of Liszt's Transcendental Études has been released – and it absolutely confirms Gerstein as one of the great contemporary piano players.
But then, his card has been marked for some time. Born in 1979 in Voronezh, south-western Russia, he moved to Boston as a 14-year-old to become the youngest student ever to attend the famous Berklee College of Music. By the start of the 21st century he had earned a master’s degree, after studying with legendary music professor Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, and in 2010 he received the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award.
That award is presented every four years to an exceptional pianist who not only possesses "broad and profound musicianship" but also has charisma and the ability to sustain a career as a major international concert artist. Gerstein certainly has all that. He is thoughtful and approachable throughout our conversation, an attitude that extends to his piano playing. For all the reputation of Transcendental Études as being a rite of passage for an ambitious pianist, Gerstein never shows off in his interpretation.
"There are a lot of misconceptions and misjudgements about the études," he says. "People think it's flashy or virtuosic music, implying that it lacks some substance. But I don't think it does. They're excellent piano compositions on their musical value, visionary in terms of foretelling impressionism and modernism, and they work as a cycle in terms of their dramatic development."
The journey the listener goes on is matched, says Gerstein, by his own personal odyssey every time he plays all 12 études. The mental, emotional and intellectual challenge is so overwhelming that he says he arrives at the end a different person to the one he started out. The clue is in the name of the work – they are, literally, transcendental.
“There are many different ways to interpret that word, and for me it relates to the many ways Liszt goes beyond the usual, not just in terms of technicality but also the way he depicts the otherworldly, the spiritual, the ghostly,” he says.
“Difficulty doesn’t always mean having to play 1,000 notes per minute, it’s about finding the tone, layers, resonances and shadings of sound. Virtuosity, speed, stamina and strength is a prerequisite. But you have to use that to good means.”
Gerstein achieves this spectacularly with Transcendental Études, and he did so by drawing on an unusual source. He studied jazz piano at Berklee after a childhood spent listening to his parents' jazz records. Those experiences have proved formative in his interpretations ever since. The average listener might not necessarily make the connections between Dizzie Gillespie and Liszt, but for Gerstein they are always present.
“In jazz, everyone understands this idea of pleasant timing – a nice swing, or a nice groove,” he says. “There’s an appreciation of harmonic changes. And so looking at that in the classical repertoire is really interesting.
“For me, Beethoven and Liszt should also have the same feel. They might have a different kind of swing or groove, but it’s still a basic building block of playing and enjoying music. It’s much more pleasant to listen to, anyway.”
So when Gerstein says “music doesn’t just come from the page”, he opens up a whole new potential audience excited through improvisation and experimentation. Which is possibly why he is as comfortable in small venues as major concert halls.
This summer, he performed at London’s world-famous Proms, then at a gorgeous venue in the Suffolk countryside, before flying to a concert in Jerusalem. Does he notice a difference in the audiences? “Playing at the Proms in front of 6,500 people is obviously amazing,” he says. “But then I can go to the YMCA hall in Jerusalem – fascinating, because it’s a meeting place of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in one building.
“Having an audience of 600 people there who are catching every single note of a chamber-music piece is a special experience.”
As special as taking on Transcendental Études?
“Well, Liszt is a crucially important piano composer,” he says. “It was the Italian composer Busoni who said that Liszt is the tree and we are all its branches. So we all owe a lot to him. He essentially invented modern piano playing when he was busy writing these études.”
Transcendental Études is out now. Visit www.kirillgerstein.com
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