Program Note: An Adès/Ravel revel
About this Piece
The music of Ravel is a complementary match with that of Thomas Adès, as the British composer-conductor-pianist demonstrates again with this multi-threaded program of brilliantly scored, highly interactive pieces. And pianist Kirill Gerstein makes the perfect partner for it. Adès wrote his Piano Concerto for Gerstein, and the two of them have performed the two-piano version of Ravel’s La valse together. “Creative reality is on the edge of chaos,” Adès said in a recent joint interview, to which Gerstein replied, “That’s what virtuosity is; it’s not a given.” “If it were a given, it wouldn’t be fun,” was Adès’ riposte. This one should be fun, to say the least. —John Henken