Saturday, October 10, 2026
8:00 PM
Andris Nelsons leads the BSO and frequent collaborator Kirill Gerstein in the U.S. premiere of a new concerto by the Spanish composer Francisco Coll. A one-time protégé of composer Thomas Adès, Coll composes music of “great energy and sonic imagination.” Beethoven’s dramatic “Coriolan” Overture begins the program, which ends with the same composer’s Seventh Symphony, a universal favorite bursting with lyricism and exuberance.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Kirill Gerstein, piano
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN “Coriolan” Overture
Francisco COLL Piano Concerto (U.S. premiere; BSO co-commission)
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7
Learn more about the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2026-2027 season on their site.
Francisco Coll is a painter as well as composer, his creative processes often overlapping to include art works specifically associated with the music he writes. Below is Piano Concerto, a painting created in conjunction with the new concerto performed in this concert.
In a conversation with CRB's Brian McCreath, Kirill Gerstein describes the unique qualities of Francisco Coll's music and, specifically, Piano Concerto, what its challenges are and why those challenges are ultimately so rewarding.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (lightly edited for clarity):
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Kirill Gerstein, who is back in Boston for the U.S. premiere of the Piano Concerto by Francisco Coll. And Kirill, thank you for some of your time today. I know you wanted to make sure you got to the Gardner Museum. Was there specific artwork that you wanted to check out there, or were you just going on a sort of exploratory visit to the museum?
Kirill Gerstein I think when I'm back in Boston and back in Back Bay, I think it's always a joy to go visit the Gardner Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts. So it's something I usually end up doing at some point during my weeks at the BSO.
Brian McCreath Understandable. Was there anything from today's visit that especially struck you?
Kirill Gerstein Well, I love the Spanish painters, and maybe I'm in the mood with Francisco Coll, so in the Gardner Museum, the Velázquez portrait of the King of Spain, and then particularly the stunning El Greco portraits in the Museum of Fine Arts. And of course, the Rembrandt is not to be overlooked, and I mean, it's an embarrassment of riches.
Brian McCreath It certainly is. I certainly have my own favorites that I have to visit every time I go to the MFA or to the Gardner.
Kirill Gerstein Which are?
Brian McCreath My favorite at the MFA is Fog Warning by Winslow Homer. Do you know that painting? It's the— there's the man in the boat with the fish trying to get back to his main boat. Do you know which one I'm talking about?
Kirill Gerstein Yeah, yeah.
Brian McCreath I find it so dramatic. I find it so completely suspenseful, but I don't know if it's hopeful or fearful or anything, but it's just amazing.
Kirill Gerstein Or both. Well, and also speaking about the Spanish theme of the week, also the Sargent, the flamenco, the big painting is also very stunning.
Brian McCreath Yeah, excellent. Well, and I'm glad that you were there. I'm glad we're talking about visual art because that's such an important part of Francisco Coll's way of being an artist. But first, I just want to ask you about your initial introduction to Francisco Coll. Where did you first encounter his music and what made it memorable to you?
Kirill Gerstein Well, what made it memorable is the music mainly, as always happens. I knew Francisco's music before I met him in person. I think the first thing I had heard were the Four Iberian Miniatures for violin and chamber orchestra. And then actually the first time we met in person was in Tanglewood. So there's a Boston Symphony connection. It was at Tanglewood during the Contemporary Music Festival, one of the years that Tom Adès was curating it. And since Francisco Coll comes perhaps nearest to being a student of Tom at some point. So Tom was programming exactly that cycle, the Four Iberian Miniatures, and that's how we met, on the side of Ozawa Hall, met in person. And I was very interested and attracted to the music and to his mixture of— or rather, the specific blend of the Spanish heritage, and at the same time, it's not in the style of a tourist postcard, but it's really authentically the Spanish DNA musically and his way of taking traditional forms, and one could say clichés, and then putting them in some different light or smashing them and sort of then the pieces on the floor are like kind of like a Picasso painting refracted, musically speaking. And then I had heard Francisco's Violin Concerto, which is an outstanding piece, and I wanted to ask him to write a piano concerto. It took some time because he had other commissions and there were certain logistical things in the way. But then here we are.
Brian McCreath I mean, I hear, especially in your description of some of his music, this essence of authenticity and certainly a grounding in his Spanish background. But I love the way you say that it kind of fractures and sits on the ground in a way. There's something about that that seems to apply to the Piano Concerto.
Kirill Gerstein I think very much so. So he really manages to be Spanish without trying to be Spanish, and that is always attractive, this, as you say, this authenticity. But also, there are many streaks in his musical makeup, so it's not always, and it's not only the sort of the Spanish thing, but it somehow is always lurking in the corners.
Brian McCreath Now tell me, because we were just talking about visual art, and as I understand it, visual art plays a huge role in Francisco Coll's creative process. And in fact, the painting that accompanies this particular piano concerto is really striking, this amazing wide view of a— well, I won't try to describe it. I won't do it justice.
Kirill Gerstein Converging keyboard that's so filled with lots of content. [see Francisco Coll's Piano Concerto above]Well, Francisco, I find, is a deeply original, creative personality and one of those people that when you speak to, he'll make some kind of comparison or allusion that is just something that I wouldn't have thought of. It's very original and surprising and inspiring. And he does have synesthesia, so he has this combined sense of color, sound, taste. And in fact, it seems that his operating procedure for composing is that he more or less concurrently usually paints and composes and seems like this is a part of the one creative process. So yes, the painting for the Piano Concerto is very striking, and generally I think obviously clearly he's a very visual person in addition to being such a talented person musically.
Brian McCreath Is there an aspect of his visual element that he creates, and especially in relation to this concerto, that particular painting, that informs anything about your work as the performer of the music?
Kirill Gerstein Anything helps. So it's helpful to look at his images. On the other hand, these extra musical inspirations, they don't end up playing the piano, and they don't end up deciding the phrasing. So there is kind of a general inspiration, a certain impulse, And then at the same time, there's the particular and contextual, like, well, what does that mean for this, for this phrase, for that page, for that episode? So in that sense, still many musical decisions have to be made. But of course, there is some inspiration, even if one can't directly pinpoint its results, that all these influences bring.
Brian McCreath And so when you get into the really detailed work of putting this piece together, what specifically is the challenge of this piece that is unique to Francisco's musical voice?
Kirill Gerstein Well, there are lots of challenges. I mean, it's devilishly difficult. The first movement, [conductor] Simon Rattle, when we premiered it in Munich in March, he said, oh, the first movement is like hearing somebody having a nervous breakdown in public because it's so mercurial, the piano part, and it's so virtuosic, but not in a pianistic way. I mean, Francisco is not a pianist himself, and he has told me himself that he would end up writing very boring music if he would write music that he thought was possible because of his own limitations, let's say, as a non-pianist. So he said, so rather I imagine the music I'd like to hear and then hope that somebody like you can play it. And that results in some extraordinary challenges. So I think one of the challenges is that the patterns, the usual patterns also in instrumental and in the hand, are also something that he's taken on the ground and smashed. So it's not that it's patternless, but they're fractured. And so even for the hand, it's quite destabilizing to orient on the keyboard.
Also, he achieves this kind of, even in the slower lyrical writing, he achieves this three-dimensional effect because the range that he uses constantly is very, very broad. So the very bass notes, the very top notes, in the middle, and kind of jumping around. And so it creates this very large framework of sound, which is very attractive, but to execute that physically is actually challenging.
And the third movement, I think, borders on the limits of what's neurologically possible or actually crosses the borders blatantly, because it's very destabilized. He described the third movement, which is titled "Ragtime," he was imagining Art Tatum but on acid, or that it's a mechanical player piano, you know, those, one of those with the piano roll that goes out of sync with itself, except I have to go out of sync with myself. So the left hand and the right hand in so many places so don't align that I feel utmost destabilized by it. And it's part of the expression, part of the struggle of the piece. And the result, I find, is very striking and very attractive, but it's very difficult to actually accomplish it.
But the heart of the piece, if one describes something, the heart of the piece is the slow movement, and it's very beautiful, emotional, sad, profound, and tragic music. And I think the entire piece is— on one hand, you can orient yourself traditionally, you know, the fast, slow, fast, three movements, cadenza, etc. So one recognizes the standard vessel holders, but the content is quite unlike anything I can think of in another piano concerto. It's very unique.
Brian McCreath And it must be said that the second movement isn't quite, but almost half the length of the piece. I mean, it's really the substantial part in the middle. Also, when you say slow movement, it's not all— it doesn't all feel slow. There's a lot going on in it, but it's passionate. It's beautiful, beautiful music.
Kirill Gerstein It's slow essence. It's the more lyrical, slower movement of the three, but like so often in these concertos, yeah, slow is quite relative, and there's a lot of relatively not slow writing in it. That's true.
Brian McCreath But it has an epic feel to it, honestly. The second movement to me has this real grandeur about it. It's not a dainty melodic movement. It's very substantial.
Kirill Gerstein Not at all. And at the same time, I think, through the Spanish heritage and obviously just through the sheer talent and lack of inhibition in the positive sense, he's able to write music that's essentially tonal without sounding like a pastiche or being self-consciously not too dissonant or something. But so he's able to get away with it, that it's very sincere, tonal, original, and certainly very contemporary sounding music.
Brian McCreath And exciting too. It's riveting to listen to.
Kirill Gerstein Yeah, and the places where I've played it so far, it really also comes across to the audience strongly, and that's obviously another indicator that it's hugely challenging and stimulating for me to play. It's very well written for the orchestra and very practical for the orchestra, so it's possible to put together in a number of rehearsals that's realistic, and it captivates the audience. So it's a really great piece, and I'm very excited that the Boston Symphony, as you know, is a co-commissioner of it. And it's now the second concerto that I'm doing here. The Thomas Adès Concerto was the premiere with Boston Symphony being the sole commissioner. Here they're the co-commissioner, and of course it's great honor to be in the line of the great Boston Symphony commissions from Stravinsky and Bartók and Honegger and countless others. I mean, the BSO has an incredible track record, and so to add to this treasure trove of newly premiered or newly written pieces, this is a particular thrill.
Brian McCreath Absolutely. Yeah. Well, just one final question, because you do mention that you've played it a few times, including the premiere you mentioned in Munich. And let's see, you also played it in Spain, I think, already. And through this first set of performances that you've done, is there any way that the music has evolved in your mind, that you've come to a different understanding of it, a deeper understanding of it at all?
Kirill Gerstein I hope so. I mean, every time, you know, one tries and certainly it becomes each time, and so it is incredibly challenging, but each time it becomes, I'm not sure easier, but I get used to the difficulty and used to making a home in this difficulty. And so in that sense, there is definitely a feeling of progress and development for myself within the piece, which is another confirmation that it really is a piece like any other traditional piece. Because, you know, when you play the Schumann Concerto, it also takes a number of tries and maybe, you know, a decade or two until you start feeling at home in it. And so it's a very similar process, which is, I think, just another proof that it's a piece that works both on its own terms and on general musical terms at large.
Brian McCreath Fantastic. Kirill Gerstein, I'm so glad you're back here. Glad to hear this piece. So thanks a lot for your time today.
Kirill Gerstein I'm glad to be playing it here. Glad to be in Boston and glad to be talking to you. Thank you.