Fairytales and Paintings

​One of the greatest talents of the new generation'. France Musique is full of praise for pianist Nathalia Milstein, known for her successes on the biggest concert stages. She opens our two concert festival of piano etudes with Rachmaninov's Etudes-Tableaux opus 39. These etudes are inspired by fairy tales and paintings. Although Rachmaninov kept his sources of inspiration to himself, each of the nine etudes tells a compelling story of its own. The music presents the pianist with great technical challenges, but above all it demands a maximum palette of colours and great narrative power. Qualities that Nathalia Milstein excels in. Her previous performances of Rachmaninov's masterpiece left a deep impression.

She opens the evening with French piano music. Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pièces de clavecin are imbued with the refined taste and contrapuntal finesse of French Baroque music. Debussy paid homage to his admired predecessor in his Images for piano. Gabriel Fauré expressed his admiration for Rameau in his beautiful Thème et Variations opus 73. Take this exceptional opportunity to hear this rarely played gem live.

French-born Nathalia Milstein, sister of violinist Maria, comes from a family of Russian musicians; her grandfather was the piano teacher of master pianists as Bella Davidovich and Elisabeth Leonskaya. ​Nathalia Milstein learned the craft from her father, Nelson Goerner and András Schiff. Since her breakthrough after winning the Dublin International Piano Competition in 2015, she has been consistently praised for her “all-round polished, characterful playing”, as de Volkskrant wrote.