It was Franz Liszt who had the piano turned at a right angle in recitals so that the audience may better admire his profile. Alexandre Kantorow is not so vain. Indeed, for much of the time, he seems completely oblivious of his audience at all, in communion (not always silent – he hums, groans, exhales) with the piano. But to watch this young lion sideways on is extraordinary, head bowed close to the keyboard, thinning mane flopping, tearing into the music with athleticism and steely determination.
And it was Liszt who formed the contemplative core of this Easter Sunday recital at the Festival de Pâques d’Aix-en-Provence, with five Schubert Lieder transcriptions in which virtuosity is largely set aside. Liszt’s style is easily detectable, but for the most part he allows Schubert to wear his own clothes. Cuffs of his black shirt unbuttoned, sleeves pushed up, Kantorow depicted the bitter desolation, “silent and joyless”, of Der Wanderer or the consoling strains of Frühlingsglaube with both simplicity and sincerity. Deep bass rumblings painted an image of the misty turrets in Die Stadt. Kantorow phrases like a Lieder singer and the way he shaped the lines of Am Meer was poetry itself.
The first half of the recital was devoted to early Brahms – very early Brahms, the Op.1 Piano Sonata in C major, where he is the young warrior rather than bearded and ruminative. Kantorow grappled with the long, difficult first movement with leonine strength, producing a majestic tone in the opening declamations, followed by the softest of touches in the moonlit second subject. Now straight-backed, he voiced the Andante, inspired by an old German Minnelied, with tender grace. Both third and fourth movements are marked con fuoco and Kantorow dispatched them with high spirits.
It was back to C major for the recital’s finale, Schubert’s epic Wanderer Fantasy where the bright opening pages recalled those first moments in the Brahms. It draws on motifs from the song previously heard in Liszt’s transcription (neat programing). This is Schubert at his most heroic, requiring a ferocious technique. Indeed, when Schubert played it for a circle of friends, he stumbled over a passage and cursed impatiently, “The Devil should play this stuff!”
Kantorow launched into it with bold abandon, throwing off the challenging writing with ease. The delicacy of the Adagio was spellbinding, the pianist caught up in his inner world, the audience as eavesdroppers on his private conversation with Schubert. The fugato finale closed with an adrenaline-pumped coda, fingers flying.
A generous recitalist, Kantorow gave four encores, including more Schubert-Liszt, closing with Arcardi Volodos’ outrageous transcription of Mozart’s Rondo alla turca which drew gasps and chuckles alike before the whole hall rose to their feet. An astonishing young man. An astonishing recital.
Mark’s press trip was funded by the Festival de Pâques d'Aix-en-Provence
