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Young Australian pianist Jayson Gillham presents his third album on ABC Classics, featuring the music of two Russian friends and piano virtuosi: Rachmaninoff\u2019s Piano Concerto No.2<\/em> \u2013 one of the most enduring pieces of classical music \u2013 and the rarely performed Piano Concerto No.1<\/em> by Nikolai Medtner, written just 15 years later. For these recordings, made\u00a0in the Iwaki Auditorium of the ABC\u2019s Southbank Centre in April 2017, Gillham is joined in the studio by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and their Associate Conductor Benjamin Northey.<\/p>\n Nikolai Medtner (1880\u20131951) was a close friend of Rachmaninoff (they even dedicated various pieces to one another) but history has treated their music very differently. The great Australian pianist Geoffrey Tozer, who died in 2009, was a rare champion of Medtner\u2019s music, and it was when Gillham was invited to feature in a documentary on Tozer\u2019s life that he discovered Medtner\u2019s work.<\/p>\n Dedicated to his mother, Medtner\u2019s Piano Concerto No.1<\/em> was written during the First World War. Also on the album, Angel,<\/em> the prologue from his Eight Mood Pictures<\/em>\u00a0for solo piano: a meditation, as Gillham puts it, on \u201cthe rediscovery of a divine song, half-remembered, half-forgotten, of a beauty that cannot be matched on earth\u201d.<\/p>\n Paired with Rachmaninoff\u2019s Piano Concerto No.2<\/em>\u00a0is the contemporaneous Prelude Op.23 No.4.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Born and brought up in rural Queensland, Gillham travelled for hours to piano lessons in Brisbane, before shooting to fame in a number of prestigious international competitions. Major concert appearances in London and the US followed, as did a three-album deal with ABC Classics. His debut record featuring solo works\u00a0by Bach, Schubert and Chopin, reached number one in the ARIA Charts on release; soon afterwards Vladimir Ashkenazy, conducting the Sydney Symphony, chose to make his first-ever recording of a Beethoven concerto with Gillham at the keyboard.<\/p>\n The tracks: NIKOLAI MEDTNER 1880\u20131951 –\u00a0Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 33<\/em> 4. Eight Stimmungsbilder (Mood Pictures), Op. 1: No. 1 Prologue \u2018The Angel\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n SERGEI RACHMANINOFF 1873\u20131943 – Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18<\/em> 8. Prelude in D major, Op. 23 No. 4<\/em><\/p>\n Album available 16 July 2017 | 1CD | Digital Album | ABC 481 5564<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Young Australian pianist Jayson Gillham presents his third album on ABC Classics, featuring the music of two Russian friends and piano virtuosi:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"sls_format":[],"class_list":["post-23388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"deck":"","is_featured":false,"media_type":"standard","audio_embed":"","video_url":""},"yoast_head":"\n
\n1. Allegro \u2013<\/em>
\n2. Tranquillo, meditamente \u2013<\/em>
\n3. Coda (Allegro molto)<\/em><\/p>\n
\n5. I. Moderato<\/em>
\n6. II. Adagio sostenuto<\/em>
\n7. III. Allegro scherzando<\/em><\/p>\n