Work: Hungarian Rhapsody no. 12 in C sharp minor, S 244/12

With a spring in his step, Evgeny Kissin returns to Barbican Hall and gives well-wrought accounts of Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Schumann.  

Gábor Farkas performs an all-Liszt recital on a 19th-century Érard piano such as Liszt used, showing us both its highlights and its shortcomings.

Evgeny Kissin is more than a collection of bones and flesh and crazy hair: he is a sensation. Every May for the past several years, the pianist has performed a recital on the Perelman stage at Carnegie Hall, and every year the tickets have sold out by mid-October, seven or eight months in advance. These recitals are the pinnacle of any concert-goer’s season.