Nicholas Collon & Kirill Gerstein

Thomas Adès wrote his piano concerto especially for Kirill Gerstein, Maurice Ravel his Concerto in D for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had been wounded in the war. It is difficult to believe from the airy texture that the pianist had only his left hand. The French word “tombeau” means a tomb or memorial, and Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin is a memorial to the great French Baroque master François Couperin.