It is quite strange to find, at the top of the double flight of escalators that lead to the Pierre-Boulez hall of the Paris Philharmonic, a group of music lovers armed with signs that say in capital letters: “Find a place”. However, this was the case on Saturday, November 2, at the beginning of the concert that brought together Alexandre Kantorow and the Munich Philharmonic under the direction of Tugan Sokhiev. Since his overwhelming victory at the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow in 2019, the first French winner, at the age of 22, of the prestigious international event, the young pianist has never deviated from his stellar career, renewing with each step of the kite the miracle of a extraordinary talent.
After a Ruslan and Lioudmila Overture, by Mikhail Glinka, brilliant although overweight, the change of scene to bring the piano closer to the proscenium seems endless. A curious feeling of fear and hope, such as only geniuses awaken, took over the room: to what countries that only he knows will Kantorow transport the Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini, of Rachmaninov? A thin figure floating in too-short pants, the pale young man dressed in black entered to applause. There is always something of the pensive Pierrot Lunar in this pianist. And it’s just lovely.
Composed in 1934 on the dance theme of 24th caprice for violinby Paganini, Rachmaninoff’s masterpiece displays twenty-four variations as inventive as they are virtuoso, in light of the legendary exploits of the famous “devil’s violinist.” The work is full of pitfalls that the pianist faces with total naturalness and a joy so deep that it turns him into a medium in the full sense of the term, the conductor of a vital energy that the piano transforms into sounds.
From the naked and asyndetic introduction, which seems almost humorously to lay the skeleton of the theme on the piano (premonition of the incipit of the Dies Irae Gregorian, who will walk around the work three times?), Kantorow is sovereign. Clarity (we hear everything, even what is not strictly touched on). Virtuosity (technical difficulties are “swallowed” without the slightest resistance). Flexibility (how do you manage to animate the line with so much ductility, elasticity, precision?). Finally, poetry: bow phrasings, trumpet colors, percussive bursts. And sonic splendor, a surprising mix of intimacy and lyricism, lightness and density, simplicity and sophistication.
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