Anne Midgette critiques Kirill Gerstein's performance

Some say Kirill Gerstein performed beautifully with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at the HEINZ HALL on Thursday night, while Anne Midgette disagrees. A classical music critic for The Washington Post says, "The piece grew simply tedious in places, and even comic segments like oompah-ing tube became dull and routine, until the whole thing died away with what I think was meant to be something fleet and sparkling, but wasn't." Another blogger named Charles T. Downey from Washington Classical Reviews, differs. He says, "There was some tentative horn playing, but the storm scene went with impressive force and velocity, followed by warm cellos and soaring violins on the love theme for Ferdinand and Miranda." While they both may be at a disagreement about the final performance, they do agree on the provisional playing of the horn. 

After personally veiwing his previous recorded performence from the Berlin Philharmonie, I found his music to be a mixture of thrills and monotone momments. There could be more emotion and feeling brought into his sound without the overwhelming music of other performers. Overall it was an interesting piece to listen to. Just as Anne Midgette wasn't pleased with his performance, she does say that Kirill Gersteins "was worth the trip." [1 image, 3 links, 3 quotes, 205 words]