Kirill Gerstein on playing Rachmaninov

Toronto's ARC Ensemble have been exploring the music of composers forced to flee their homeland by the Nazis. The most recent release in Chandos's Music in Exile series – of music by Ernest Kanitz (1894-1978) – drew an enthusiastic welcome by Gramophone's critic Richard Bratby, a ...  Show more

This month's Gramophone Podcast sees Editor Martin Cullingford joined by William Vann, Director of the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, to talk about his new album of choral music by Elgar: Light out of Darkness, released on Somm Recordings. The wonderfully-chosen sele ...  Show more

SynopsisIn Rochester, New York, on today’s date in 1957, there was a concert at the Eastman School of Music, conducted by the school’s famous director Howard Hanson, showcasing new works composed by Eastman graduate students. Included on the program was a brand-new Trombone Conce ...  Show more

Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto - famously featured in David Lean's film "Brief Encounter" - is one of the world's most popular pieces of classical music. Some of its fans describe the way in which it has touched and shaped their lives. Featuring a pianist from Taiwan whose memo ...  Show more

Synopsis A concerto, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is “a piece for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements.” And for most classical music fans, “concerto” means one of big romantic ones by Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, works in which there is a kind o ...  Show more

Samira celebrates the music and life of Sergei Rachmaninoff. With pianist Kirill Gerstein, who has released a new recording of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic, Marina Frolova-Walker, Professor of Music at Cambridge, pianist Lucy Parham, who has c ...  Show more