Programme

Claude Debussy
"En blanc et noir"

Thomas Adès
"Powder her face" - Suite

Maurice Ravel
La valse

Kirill Gerstein, Piano

Thomas Adès, Piano

Thomas Adès is a composer, conductor – and pianist. He will demonstrate his prowess in a recital for piano duo with Kirill Gerstein. Rather than the 88 black-and-white keys of the piano, Claude Debussy’s En blanc et noir draws on etchings by Goya, whose Desastres de la guerra inspired him to depict the horrors of World War I in his piano cycle of 1915. Maurice Ravel’s La Valse, premièred  in 1920, is likewise laid out as a frenzy of destruction. Also featured is Adès’s Concert Paraphrase on “Powder Her Face”, the composer’s own piano arrangement of four scenes from his like-named chamber opera.