He does not decide between “traditional and exotic repertoire”, affirms Marc-André Hamelin, justifiably acclaimed as one of the most outstanding Canadian pianists since Glenn Gould and recipient of the 2013 Ruhr Piano Festival Prize. Hamelin is by no means an eccentric in terms of his appearance on stage, but he does tend to choose repertoire lying off the beaten path. Although the music of Schubert and Brahms, for instance, lies close to his heart, Hamelin’s boundless curiosity leads him to feature unusual, occasionally forgotten creative geniuses of timbre such as Nikolai Kapustin, Leopold Godowsky, or Charles-Valentin Alkan – for the even greater enjoyment of his audience. For his 18th performance at the Ruhr Piano Festival, Hamelin has selected a programme combining the piano music of Gabriel Fauré (described by Proust as “intoxicating”) with a composition of his own pen, Suite à l’ancienne, und Paul Dukas’s expressive, virtuoso piano sonata – a fantastic, monumental work containing countless references to the great masters of the keyboard. For an “über-virtuoso” such as Hamelin, this technically challenging programme is by no means an obstacle, but a challenge he takes up with relish. “Virtuosity, for me, consists in total, heightened mastery of all means of musical expression,” he explains. And Hamelin will certainly demonstrate that approach in his recital at Herne.