In the closing track of his new album, Rachmaninoff 150, released today on Apple Music, Krill Gerstein pays homage to Rachmaninov's earlier works through his own arrangement of In the Silence of the Secret Night, the third of the Six Romances Op.4.

In his introductory note to the sheet music for this piece, recently published by Faber, Gerstein expresses his admiration for Rachmaninov's youthful romanticism and his desire to transform the vocal setting of lines by Afanasy Fet into a purely instrumental work. Gerstein remarks ‘while other great pianists have transcribed this song in the past – often rather opulently, perhaps closer to the Rachmaninov of the 1930s – in my own version I set out to dress the musical material in piano textures more typical of the composer’s style c.1900-1910’.

Rachmaninoff 150 is released in conjunction with Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings and Platoon, and features studio recordings of selected solo piano works, and a live recording of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, performed by Kirill Gerstein with the Berliner Philharmoniker, led by Kirill Petrenko and captured at the Waldbühne amphitheater in Berlin in June 2022.