Experience concert highlights of the 2022 season (again). Every month until the start of the festival season in May 2023 we will publish a new video in our series »Nachgehört«. Subscribe to our newsletter to never miss a video and get earlier exclusive access to the concerts. Alexandre Kantorow’s concert will be available until November 30.

FRANZ LISZT »Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen«, p 179 – Prelude after Johann Sebastian Bach, BWV 12

ROBERT SCHUMANN Sonata No. 1 in F-sharp minor, op. 11

FRANZ LISZT Sonetto del Petrarca No. 104 »Pace non trovo«, p 161/5; »Abschied, russisches Volkslied«, p 251; »La lugubre gondola«, p 200/2

ALEXANDER SKRYABIN »Vers la flamme, poème«, op. 72

FRANZ LISZT Après une lecture de Dante, fantasia quasi Sonata, S 161/7

Alexandre Kantorow Piano

Hardly a literary work has influenced human notions of the otherworld so profoundly as Dante Alighieri’s »Divine Comedy« of 1321. To reach paradise, one must first descend to the depths of hell in order to pass through purgatory and attain redemption in heaven. This trajectory will be traced by pianist Alexandre Kantorow, the latest winner of the renowned Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, in his concert. Thus, Franz Liszt’s arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s »Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen« was an attempt at

coming to terms with the death of his daughter, while Alexander Scriabin’s »Vers la flamme, poème« threatens the ineluctable, fiery destruction of the world – a subject more topical than ever, given today’s climate crisis. Robert Schumann’s first piano sonata veers between lightness of touch and the torments of love: as an expression of intimate affection, it was dedicated to Clara, who was to become his wife. The recital ends with Liszt’s so-called »Dante Sonata«, which summarizes the evening’s trajectory in one

single work.