In 2019 Alexandre Kantorow won the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition (worth $30,000), as well as the rarely awarded Grand Prix ($100,000). Only one pianist had done that before: Daniil Trifonov in 2009. He has also been named the 2024 Gilmore Artist award, worth a total of £300,000. He might be forgiven for easing up rather than practising and performing. But even at age 26, génie oblige, as Franz Liszt said of himself, and Kantorow launched into Brahms’ Rhapsody in B minor – and his Wigmore Hall debut – as if he had urgent things to tell us. The middle section lullaby is usually taken more slowly (which is not marked), but Kantorow kept the music flowing up to the imposing return of the passionate opening.
Murray Perahia once said to his mentor, Horowitz, “I want to be more than a virtuoso”. “Of course,” came the reply, “but first you have to be a virtuoso.” Kantorow displays jaw-dropping virtuosity, but in a poetic cause. Liszt’s Transcendental Study Chasse-neige portrayed the atmosphere of drifting snow with always expressive if tricky figuration, before plunging us into a whiteout of tremolos, wide leaps and hands in fast contrary motion. The supremely poetic Vallée d'Obermann, the gem in a brilliant first half, opened with the most rapt evocation of Obermann’s search for meaning. The Agitato molto section overtook this solitary quest with rattling tremolos and much hand-crossing, to a ringing conclusion, provoking the biggest cheer of the night (which is saying something). The unusual choice to close the first half was Bartók’s Rhapsody Op.1, the logic being that here was a homage to Liszt from the next era of great Magyar composers, played with a near-ideal narrative line that kept listeners engaged crossing this unfamiliar terrain.
The First Piano Sonata of Rachmaninov is hardly more familiar, but some younger players are now devoting the time required to master its 35-minute length. The tense drama of its opening was given by Kantorow with a concern for sonic warmth and resonance that was beguiling, but still hinted at the fiercely agitated struggle ahead (there was an initial Faust programme, never published). Then the chant-like theme was intimately treated, a beacon of hope. The Lento, invested with an enchanted nostalgia by Kantorow, suggested a balmy summer evening at the composer’s country estate. The Mephistophelian ride of the Finale was precipitate but controlled, the reminiscence of earlier material highly effective dramatic recall. As with all the best performances, doubts about the work itself are silenced, the mighty work clearly one of the great sonatas of the last century.
The second half, like the first, closed with an homage. Brahms’ piano transcription of Bach’s solo violin Chaconne, is for left hand alone, his attempt to replicate the restriction of just four strings, yet still approach the range and invention of Bach’s original. It succeeds not least because it has the same sense of struggle, of recalcitrance overcome, and of expressive aspiration undimmed by limitation. Kantorow played with inexorable growth from the smallest beginnings, the power steadily cumulative and eventually triumphant. It is not an obvious piece to close a concert especially after such a performance as the Rachmaninov – until you hear it played like this. Wigmore Hall has seen many a memorable debut. This was unquestionably another.
