Cast
Alexandre Kantorow — Pianist
Program notes
Tearing up the classical scene since his commanding victory at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition, Alexandre Kantorow comes to you live from the Philharmonie de Paris with a Brahms-centric program! The young superstar kicks things off with the lyrical Ballades, Op. 10, two pairs of tonally interrelated pieces inspired by narrative poetry, followed by Rachmaninov's Sonata No. 1, before moving on to a left-hand transcription of Bach's immortal Chaconne, one of the most towering achievements in music history. In a letter to Clara Schumann, Brahms wrote of the work, "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man [Bach] writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."
Photo: Alexandre Kantorow © Sasha Gusov
Broadcast with the support of Bouygues Construction, builder of the Philharmonie de Paris.
Click here to discover Alexandre Kantorow's album "À la russe".
Click here to discover Alexandre Kantorow's album "Brahms, Bartók, Liszt".
Alexandre Kantorow appears courtesy of BIS Records.
