David Petrlik and Alexandre Kantorow play Debussy, Ravel, Falla, and Ponce

Feast your eyes and ears on this 2017 meeting between two up-and-coming young stars, an astonishing display of artistry and virtuosity from the Philharmonie de Paris! Aged just 19—two years before his bravura, multi-prizewinning run (including the coveted, rarely awarded Grand Prix) at the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition—pianist Alexandre Kantorow takes the stage with violin prodigy David Petrlik for a series of impeccably rendered duets.

The dynamic duo begins with Debussy’s final major composition, the lilting and elegant Violin Sonata in G Minor, which premiered in 1917 with Debussy himself at the piano. Next up is an early work by Maurice Ravel: his posthumous Violin Sonata in A Minor, composed when he, like the two immense young talents on stage, was a student at the prestigious Paris Conservatory. The exquisitely soulful Suite populaire espagnole, Manuel de Falla’s instrumental transcription of his Siete canciones populares españolas, closes the main program, leaving the duo to enchant the audience one final time in a gem of an encore by Mexican composer Manuel Ponce, arranged by violin legend Jascha Heifetz.