Ivo Pogorelich / Piano Recital

Some say Ravel’s »Gaspard de la nuit« is the most difficult piano piece of all. That is almost certainly true when you consider above all the technical and virtuosic, indeed the almost acrobatic, aspects of the work. Ivo Pogorelich, who has placed Ravel’s masterpiece at the end of his programme, declared in the book »Great Contemporary Pianists Speak for Themselves« (1991), however, that he considered Bach’s music to be the most difficult and challenging. He had been dreaming of playing Bach’s English Suites since he was 14 or 15 years old. It was already clear to him at that time that the music must have been penned by a genius – »brilliant«, »fantastic« music. For years, Pogorelich carried the music with him in his head, listened to it again and again, and grappled with it intensively. He waited until he felt the works had infused into him completely. Then, when he was finally ready, he played them in concerts for a year, before going to the studio to record Suites No. 2 and 3. Ivo Pogorelich now also opens this concert with the Third.