{"id":51109,"date":"2025-01-08T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/97ab36a0-e678-4d96-aa4f-ff8c3cdd5ec9"},"modified":"2025-01-08T11:09:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T10:09:21","slug":"who-is-alexandre-kantorow-the-exciting-young-pianist-described-as-liszt-reincarnated","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/who-is-alexandre-kantorow-the-exciting-young-pianist-described-as-liszt-reincarnated\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Alexandre Kantorow? The exciting young pianist described as ‘Liszt reincarnated’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 08 January 2025 at 09:30 AM<\/p>

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Read on to discover all about exciting young French pianists Alexandre Kantorow…<\/strong><\/p>

Performing for millions at the Paris Olympics… in torrential rain<\/h3>
It\u2019s 27 July 2024 and for the second time in 24 hours Alexandre Kantorow is playing Ravel<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Jeux d\u2019eau<\/em> \u2013 but now without actual water. The night before, a global TV audience of tens of millions had watched him perform the piece at the Paris Olympics\u2019 opening ceremony, battered by near-apocalyptic rain. In the morning, he navigated the flooding to reach the Verbier Festival in the Swiss Alps, where his recital is leaving his audience in ecstasies. The Ravel is the obvious encore.<\/p>

<\/div> <figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> Alexandre Kantorow performs at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony… in a downpour <\/figcaption> <\/figure> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who is Alexandre Kantorow? The next Franz Liszt…<\/h3> <p>The young lion of the piano, now 27, winner of the Gold Medal, First Prize and the rarely awarded Grand Prix at the 2019 <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/news\/international-tchaikovsky-competition-expelled-from-world-federation-of-international-music-competitions\">International Tchaikovsky Competition<\/a><\/strong>, tends to wander on to the platform looking as if he has tumbled out of a catnap, hair aslant, clothes crumpled. Yet so volcanic, poetic and all-embracing are the sounds he draws from the instrument that <em>Fanfare<\/em> magazine has called him \u2018<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/franz-liszt\">Liszt<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0reincarnated\u2019.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/20-greatest-pianists-all-time\">The 20 greatest pianists of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>It\u2019s quite an image to live up to, but Kantorow, meeting me for a mountainside coffee the next day, simply laughs: \u2018It\u2019s a good catchphrase!\u2019 Indeed, in certain respects Liszt is almost his role model. \u2018What touches me is the fact that Liszt had one of the most curious minds I\u2019ve ever heard of. He would change his ideas, he would try to find better technique, he would work on pianos, he could already imagine impressionism, atonality and tone poems for orchestra, and he would take music everywhere in Europe. This is the part of him that I hope I will have in my life so that it\u2019s always constant food for the\u00a0soul\u00a0and for music.\u2019\u00a0<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/who-invented-the-piano-recital\">A thousand wild concerts: how Liszt invented the piano recital and became a 19th-century pin-up<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Alexandre Kantorow… an extravagant, Romantic, instinctive performer<\/h3> <p>Kantorow\u2019s Verbier recital extended from <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/johann-sebastian-bach\">Bach<\/a><\/strong> to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/bela-bartok\">Bart\u00f3k<\/a><\/strong>, but his audience can\u2019t help thinking of him as a Romantic. Is he one? \u2018I don\u2019t know,\u2019 he muses, \u2018but I love the feeling of having no plan when you start the performance. Even arriving with something that I\u2019ve built in the rehearsals, many elements are instinctive. You\u2019ve prepared and your hands won\u2019t fail you. But the moment you start thinking too consciously in a concert, then you take shortcuts, and you can almost destroy a certain natural circuit of music. That can become challenging because you feel you are battling, or thinking twice about things that are so natural. More and more, I think this instinctive part of a\u00a0concert\u00a0is\u00a0important.\u00a0<\/p> <p>\u2018There\u2019s certainly a Romantic element in the fact that, maybe as in theatre, you take on emotions that you don\u2019t experience in normal life. You suddenly bring into your body matters as extravagant as hell, heaven, the struggle of death and love, the immanence of things \u2013 all these feelings that through music are much easier to grasp than with words. They come into play at the moment of a concert and then go away when you come back to real life. Maybe that\u2019s the Romantic part.\u2019<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/bela-bartok\">Best child piano prodigies of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who are Kantorow’s musician parents?<\/h3> <p>Kantorow grew up in a family of musicians. His English mother is a violinist, and his father is the celebrated French violinist and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/what-does-a-conductor-do\">conductor<\/a><\/strong> Jean-Jacques Kantorow. \u2018They treated music as such a normal part of life that it never struck me that it was unusual to have two musical parents, to hear classical music all the time and to hear my dad performing, giving recitals and always practising,\u2019 Kantorow recounts. \u2018I was in a normal school where I was nearly the only one doing classical music. My parents were more focused on how I did my homework.\u2019\u00a0<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/20-greatest-violinists-ever\">20 greatest violinists of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">An early love of the piano and his first teachers<\/h3> <p>Unsurprisingly, he tried to learn the violin. \u2018It didn\u2019t suit me at all! But I started piano very young, and it felt much more natural. I loved the feeling of deciphering a score and finding it immediately on the keys of the piano.\u2019 After his teacher Igor Lazko asked him, aged 11, if he was planning to get serious about the instrument, Kantorow replied that he was, \u2018though I\u2019m not sure I even knew at the time,\u2019 he reflects. After that, he attended a music high school, surrounded by other musical youngsters, and there played his first concerto. It showed him something of what life would be like as a musician. \u2018Then it clicked and I couldn\u2019t go back.\u2019<\/p> <p>At the Paris Conservatoire he studied with Frank Braley, a former winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. \u2018He was in his first year of teaching there and had a big performing career,\u2019 he remembers. \u2018I loved working with him. He\u00a0didn\u2019t treat the piano as an instrument, but\u00a0as an orchestra.\u2019\u00a0<\/p> <p>He also loved Parisian life, having grown up in the countryside near Clermont-Ferrand. \u2018This was the first time I\u2019d lived in Paris. Compared to other students who had lived there longer, knew everybody and had a global view of music, my view was very narrow. So, this was a time of expansion for me, a time for\u00a0learning\u00a0everything.\u2019<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Alexandre Kantorow… preparing for the Tchaikovsky Competition<\/h3> <p>An epiphany arrived when he heard Lucas Debargue play in the 2015 Tchaikovsky Competition; the French pianist won fourth prize and the special prize of the Moscow Music Critics\u2019 Association. \u2018Everybody saw how special he was. He had started in music quite late, stopped, then went back to it much later, so he had much less experience than the other competitors. But he had a voice, a soul and a presence. I was curious about the teacher who brought him to that and I called her.\u2019 She is Rena Shereshevskaya, a distinguished pedagogue who had studied with Lev Vlassenko at the Moscow Conservatory and settled in Paris in 1993.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Under her tutelage, Kantorow began to contemplate entering the Tchaikovsky Competition himself. \u2018I had not done a major competition before,\u2019 he says, \u2018and I thought it would be like playing a concert\u2026 My teacher knew better!\u2019 Shereshevskaya led him through an intense period of preparation that involved, he says, delving into the repertoire in enormous detail, and giving as many try-out performances of it as he possibly could. It was just as well: \u2018The first round was one of the most nerve-wracking things I\u2019ve ever done.\u2019\u00a0<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/yunchan-lim-wins-van-cliburn-international-piano-competition-2022\">Yunchan Lim wins Van Cliburn International Competition 2022<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>Through the contest, he and his fellow competitors scarcely looked up from their task. \u2018We were in a bubble, just practising near the Conservatory, cut off from the rest of the world.\u2019 When he heard he had won, he could scarcely believe it: \u2018I think I blocked everything out!\u2019 Only three artists had previously been awarded the Grand Prix: the pianist Daniil Trifonov and the singers Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar and Hibla Gerzmava. Kantorow is also the first French musician to win this competition.<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Alexandre Kantorow… the weight of responsibility following his Tchaikovsky win<\/h3> <p>A roller-coaster existence ensued: he was immediately whisked off for a prize winners\u2019 concert tour without going home. \u2018At first, I think I was still high on the concerts and I didn\u2019t have time to process it. A month later, when I had time off, I was able to think about what had happened \u2013 and there was an immense joy that my playing had touched people and that so many possibilities were opening up. At the same time, there was a tremendous weight of responsibility. I had to prove they had made the right choice.\u2019 The critics were in little doubt, though: <em>Diapason <\/em>commented that Kantorow had \u2018burst into the piano galaxy like a comet\u2019.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Alexandre Kantorow won the Grand Prix of the Tchaikovsky Competition with this concerto\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yzdPLcUIhN8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> Alexandre Kantorow performs Barhms’s First Piano Concerto – the piece with which he won the Tchaikovsky Competition <\/figcaption> <\/figure> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/female-pianists\">5 pioneering women pianists<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Alexandre Kantorow… recording the Brahms sonatas<\/h3> <p>The Covid pandemic interfered, of course, but Kantorow treated it as \u2018a time to reflect and to prepare a bit better for the future\u2019. That was fortunate, because now the future is here and keeping him extremely busy. Last year he won, unexpectedly, the Gilmore Artist Award, for which winners are chosen in secret; it is worth a cool $300,000. His recordings (he now has an exclusive contract with BIS) have been lauded to the skies and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B0D9T9FKMQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">a new one<\/a><\/strong> is just out: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/johannes-brahms\">Brahms<\/a><\/strong> Sonata No. 1, Op.\u00a01, and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/franz-schubert\">Schubert<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s \u2018Wanderer\u2019 Fantasy, plus six Liszt transcriptions of Schubert songs.\u00a0<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/what-was-war-romantics\">War of the Romantics: why Brahms accused his rival Liszt of being ‘an evil influence’<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>It is part of an inspiring series: \u2018I wanted to finish my set of the three Brahms sonatas, each of which came with a different programme. The sonatas are youthful pieces, written when Brahms was\u00a0at his most experimental.\u00a0<\/p> <p>\u2018No. 1 is the closest to Schubert\u2019s music and I think it has many connections with the \u201cWanderer\u201d Fantasy. It is based on a similar rhythm; its heart is the slow movement, which like the Schubert unfolds as variations on a song; and the other movements use the same material. It seemed natural to put these two works together.\u2019 Alongside them, Kantorow plays transcriptions of songs that reflect Schubert\u2019s Wanderer, \u2018who feels he is a stranger wherever he goes and is never at home, never at peace\u2019.<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Dealing with stress and exhaustion<\/h3> <p>I can\u2019t help wondering if this \u2018fire-breathing virtuoso\u2019, as one review termed him, has strategies for survival in a life that also does not bring much peaceful time at home. \u2018When you feel the stress, the more you try to make it go away, the less effective it is!\u2019 Kantorow says, laughing. \u2018But sometimes, if you feel a bit down and a bit tired, you just go on stage with this feeling. You don\u2019t try and change it. And\u00a0suddenly\u00a0the music will carry you and open you up.\u2019<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Wednesday, 08 January 2025 at 09:30 AM Read on to discover all about exciting young French pianists Alexandre Kantorow… Performing for millions at the Paris Olympics… in torrential rain It\u2019s 27 July 2024 and for the second time in 24 hours Alexandre Kantorow is playing Ravel\u2019s Jeux d\u2019eau \u2013 but now without actual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":51110,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"8"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/who-is-alexandre-kantorow-the-exciting-young-pianist-described-as-liszt-reincarnated.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/who-is-alexandre-kantorow-the-exciting-young-pianist-described-as-liszt-reincarnated-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/who-is-alexandre-kantorow-the-exciting-young-pianist-described-as-liszt-reincarnated-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/who-is-alexandre-kantorow-the-exciting-young-pianist-described-as-liszt-reincarnated-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/who-is-alexandre-kantorow-the-exciting-young-pianist-described-as-liszt-reincarnated-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/who-is-alexandre-kantorow-the-exciting-young-pianist-described-as-liszt-reincarnated.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/who-is-alexandre-kantorow-the-exciting-young-pianist-described-as-liszt-reincarnated.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Wednesday, 08 January 2025 at 09:30 AM Read on to discover all about exciting young French pianists Alexandre Kantorow… Performing for millions at the Paris Olympics… in torrential rain It\u2019s 27 July 2024 and for the second time in 24 hours Alexandre Kantorow is playing Ravel\u2019s Jeux d\u2019eau \u2013 but now without actual…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/51109"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}