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The Grand Style Graces New York New York
Carnegie Hall
04/21/2026 - & March 24 (Paris), 31, April 1, 2* (La Chaux‑de‑Fonds), 14 (Kansas City), 16 (Cleveland), 17 (Worcester), 19 (Atlanta), 23 (Berkeley), 25 (San Diego), 28 (Los Angeles), May 2 (Kalamazoo), June 4 (London), 5 (Oxford), 2026
Franz Liszt: Variations on the Theme “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” (after J. S. Bach), S. 180
Nicolas Medtner: Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5
Frédéric Chopin: Prelude in C‑sharp Minor, Op. 45
Charles-Valentin Alkan: Preludes, Op. 31: 8.“La Chanson de la folle au bord de la mer”
Alexander Scriabin: Vers la flamme, Op. 72
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111
Alexandre Kantorow (piano)
A. Kantorow (© Sasha Gusov)
If Beethoven pioneered the emotive spirit of the Romantic musician, his disciple Franz Liszt, who studied with one of the older man’s pupils and claimed to have once played for him as a child of eleven, popularized it, traversing Europe to give concerts for audiences that could add up to thousands of people. The star soloist tradition waned in the twentieth century, when performance was marked more by precision and introspection. But old traditions die hard, and this one has emerged anew in the twenty‑eight year old French pianist Alexandre Kantorow, who is touring with a challenging program that includes works by both of the inspirational performing composers of two centuries ago.
Kantorow hit the scene young, winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition when he was just twenty‑two before moving ahead to other accolades and global renown. Appearing in a casual black outfit, he radiated what Italians of the Renaissance called sprezzatura, a kind of assured nonchalance. As soon as he sat down to play, however, stormy dynamism gripped cavernous Carnegie Hall and the nearly sold‑out crowd who turned out to hear his youthful talent.
The first part of the concert opened with Liszt’s brief but highly emotive Variations on the Theme ‘Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen,” a reference to Bach that Liszt created to mourn the death of his daughter. Heavy octaves yielded to Kantorow’s command before drifting effortlessly into the piece’s lighter moments. The effect was heavy but not lugubrious as he moved into Medtner’s Piano Sonata in F Minor,” the first of the composer’s fourteen compositions in the form, which stunned the audience into hypnotic admiration. The work is fiendishly difficult, but Kantorow played it with utter clarity, mastering its demanding rhythms and pulsating lyricism with equal aplomb.
The audience was left thirsting for more, and relief came in the second half, with an introductory Chopin prelude, a short, five‑minute piece he composed in the manner of a pedagogical exercise but with a searching originality. This particular prelude was his contribution to an anthology of piano works by eleven composers published in 1841 to celebrate the unveiling of a new monument to Beethoven. Kantorow, however, made it all his own in a superb demonstration of technical skill. He moved effortlessly into the French composer Charles‑Valentin Alkan’s nearly contemporaneous but exceptionally difficult “La Chanson de la folle au bord de la mer,” one prelude in a larger set of twenty‑five that he wrote to include all of the major and minor keys. Here the pianist must master dark, funereal chords with the left hand while playing upbeat melodic notes with the right. The work dates back to 1847, but this was understandably Carnegie Hall’s first performance of it. Kantorow did it proud before continuing with Scriabin’s equally complex Vers la flamme, a miniature tone poem of about six minutes’ duration possibly conceived for inclusion in a larger multisensory work he planned under the title “Mysterium,” which was intended to include dance, color, and other multimedia effects in addition to music. The composer wrote vaguely of light blossoming within a fog, and Kantorow navigated the musical meteorology brilliantly.
The concert concluded with Beethoven’s late-life Piano Sonata No. 32, his last, which he composed in near‑total deafness. As in other pieces, Kantorow’s challenge was to balance its rumblingly dark “Maestoso” first movement with the cathartic lyricism of the second “Arietta” movement, which is further marked “Adagio molto semplice e cantabile.” The work divides neatly in half, initially leaving Beethoven’s heir to wonder whether a printer had left out the expected third movement finale, but Kantorow used the symmetry to his best advantage.
Kantorow reverted to Liszt for his only encore, a thrilling and forceful playing of the composer’s piano transcription of the “Liebestod” from his son‑in‑law Richard Wagner’s opera of impossible love Tristan und Isolde. The piece’s abundant trills perfectly suited Kantorow’s expository technique and also touched a visceral nerve with the New York audience, which only weeks ago heard Wagner’s complete work nearby at the Metropolitan Opera, where it returned with star soloists in a much anticipated new production after a decade‑long absence.
Paul du Quenoy
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