Interview
Valery Gergiev in conversation with Matthew Hunter Hélène Grimaud and Valery Gergiev
This concert includes a meeting of two exceptional musicians: the French pianist Hélène Grimaud, known for her subtle and headstrong interpretations of a repertoire ranging from Bach to Bartók, and the sensitive eccentric, Valery Gergiev, who raised the venerable Mariinsky Theatre to new heights as its artistic director. The programme includes Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony.
For this concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Valery Gergiev – the “most influential present-day Russian conductor”, according to Die Zeit– conducts a programme rich in contrasts: first, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with Hélène Grimaud as the soloist, then Sergei Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony. The G-major concerto was the last concert piano composition that Beethoven, who was losing his hearing, was able to launch as soloist. In contrast, Prokofiev’s Sixth, premiered some 140 years later and banned shortly thereafter by the Soviet cultural authorities, is not an example of artistic borderline experiences, but rather musically works through a human crisis of hitherto unprecedented scale: the Second World War.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Valery Gergiev
Hélène Grimaud
© 2015 Berlin Phil Media GmbH
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