Evgeny Kissin: one concert, two concertos

Perhaps the most gifted classical pianist of our time, Evgeny Kissin takes centre stage with two rarely-performed jewels of the piano concerto repertoire.

Admired – even venerated – as the heir of the great Russian piano tradition, Kissin has an impressive list of awards, firsts and ‘youngest-evers’ to his name, including a Grammy for his recording of Prokofiev piano concertos with the Philharmonia.

His extraordinary programme brings together two bold, brilliant piano concertos by Prokofiev and Scriabin, alongside two dramatic Russian symphonic tone poems: Rachmaninov’s evocative The Rock, and Mussorgsky’s stormy Night on a Bald Mountain which promises to thrill audiences with its wild and terrifying Witches’ Sabbath.

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto, like its composer, is bright and daring. Kissin chose to perform it in a competition at the St Petersburg Conservatory, reasoning that the jury “simply would not be able to judge whether I was playing it well or not”. His chutzpah paid off, and he won the competition – his prize was a grand piano.

Scriabin said that he wrote the piano part of his concerto in just a week. Yearning and poetic, it follows in the footsteps of Chopin, but points firmly in the direction of Scriabin’s journey into radical, almost mystical individuality.

Please note a change to this programme, with Rimsky-Korsakov’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bald Mountain replacing the previously advertised Rimsky-Korsakov Piano Concerto at the request of the soloist.