Just 24 hours after his breathtaking Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto with Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Kirill Gerstein was at Auckland Museum's Fazioli, revealing the immense and more intimate rewards of the piano recital.
His programme had been fashioned with curatorial purpose, highlighting the purely musical pleasures to be found in works written with some pedagogical intent.
A pair of Chromatic Inventions from the final book of Bartok's Mikrokosmos had the tang of a tasty amuse bouche, as Gerstein deliberated over their jagged lines, before both capitulated into a runaway accelerando of anticipation.
Bach wrote his Three-Part Inventions to inspire cantabile playing and develop an appreciation of the finer points of composition.
Gerstein's cool, impeccably articulated approach gave higher priority to textural clarity, which worked brilliantly when he pursued the unswerving logic of the set's bubbling D major work.
