Alexandre Kantorow / Piano Recital

The Telegraph calls him a »poet at the piano«, in the Austrian press he is considered »one of the best pianists in the world«, and the New York Times reports that he far exceeds all high expectations: Alexandre Kantorow is a true rising star of the piano world. As Artist in Residence at the Elbphilharmonie, the Frenchman is organising a whole series of concerts, of which his solo evening in the Grand Hall is a particular highlight.

The programme includes music from the Baroque to the 20th century: virtuoso works with a Hungarian flavour by Béla Bartók and Franz Liszt as well as Sergei Rachmaninov’s rarely heard First Sonata – a powerful and highly emotional work that seems to push the expressive possibilities of late Romanticism to their limits.

Brahms, with whose music Alexandre Kantorow has been making a name for himself for some time, provides the framework for the evening. As part of his Elbphilharmonie residency, Kantorow will also be focussing on the great Romantic composer: he performs Brahms’ piano quartets in a high-calibre four-piece ensemble and presents his Second Piano Concerto in the Grand Hall. And for his solo recital, he not only has a lively and lyrical rhapsody in store, but also Brahms’ arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous Chaconne for solo violin, which the piano composer realised in a sophisticated way for the left hand on the piano.