Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra / Kantorow / Honeck

Alexandre Kantorov, who was the first Frenchman to win the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 2019 at the age of 22, opens his portrait series at the Wiener Konzerthaus with Brahms' 1st Piano Concerto. His rise was phenomenal. Shortly afterwards, Der Standard wrote of the »best pianist in the world«, and he was even described as »the reborn Liszt«. He drew an audience of millions to the opening of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, where he played Ravel's »Jeux d'eau« in the flowing rain on a bridge over the Seine. However, Johannes Brahms is one of his favourite composers. He finds his works sensual and organic, »... like the roots of a tree, from which the mighty network of branches and leaves unfolds quite naturally«.

Heavy and large
The path to his First Piano Concerto was a rocky one for Brahms. Initially, he wanted to rework his sonata for two pianos into a symphony, but he did not succeed – until he had the idea of developing it into a piano concerto. »From the first movement and scherzo and a finale, terribly heavy and big. I was quite enthusiastic«, Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann in 1855. »I am also painting a gentle portrait of you, which is to become the Adagio.« The audience was also impressed at the premiere in Hanover in 1859.

Powerful and grotesque
The orchestral part in this concert is played by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, which interprets Dmitri Shostakovich's 5th Symphony in the second half of the concert. A recording of this powerful work under the direction of Manfred Honeck won two Grammys in 2018, one of which was for Best Orchestral Recording. Shostakovich composed the symphony in 1937, shortly after he had fallen out of favour with Stalin for his opera »Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk«. Shostakovich's outwardly conformist, triumphant Fifth earned him great acclaim. Today, however, one hears an exaggeration that turns the powerful, merciless marches into the grotesque.