Review: Here comes the next generation of virtuoso pianists
Alexander and Alexandre. They are both in their 20s. Each boasts an International Tchaikovsky Competition gold medal. Each is a rising star. Each has a Russian background. Each could be heard playing Rachmaninoff over the weekend in Southern California — and they couldn't be less alike if they tried.
Both have made the news. In an example of anti-Russian hysteria two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Alexander Malofeev's appearance with the Montreal Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas was summarily canceled, as were other Canadian engagements. It made no difference that the then-20-year-old pianist, who has Ukrainian relatives, had opposed the invasion and moved to Berlin.
Alexandre Kantorow became a YouTube sensation last summer thanks to his intrepid appearance at the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Paris. Playing outdoors during a rainstorm, he didn't miss a beat in, of all pieces, Ravel's 'Jeux d'Eau' (Water Games).
For their local appearances, Malofeev played a recital in the Music Academy of the West's Hahn Hall as part of the UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures series. Kantorow made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall as soloist in Rachmaninoff's 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.'
Both Sashas are exceptional virtuosos. Neither is particularly demonstrative. But Malofeev, now 23, can become a keyboard demon. He appears elfish and shy as he approaches his instrument. Once seated, though, his body bends to the keys as if in command of the piano's power. His intensity overwhelms. Kantorow, on the other hand, is more a genius of the genteel. He keeps his cool in a downpour; he keeps his cool with Rachmaninoff.
Born in Moscow, Malofeev captured attention winning first prize at the 2014 International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians, becoming a recognized prodigy throughout Russia. In the nearly three years since he moved to the West, he has risen up the professional circuit. Daniel Barenboim has been a champion. He made his L.A. debut with the Pasadena Symphony in 2023. Last summer he appeared with the L.A. Phil at the Hollywood Bowl.
Hearing Malofeev in the intimate but not claustrophobic Hahn Hall acoustic, however, brought out new dimensions. For the first half, he joined three otherworldly impromptus — Drei Klavierstücke, Opus 946 — written in Schubert's last months with the Third Sonata by the neglected Soviet composer Dmitri Kabalevsky. The sonata from 1947 celebrates the end of a world war and sublimates the war's lasting pain, and that fit surprisingly well with Schubert's dramatic outbursts of existential terror that fade into an emptiness filled with sublime lyricism.
There is no surface to Malofeev's playing. He tests the deepness of each phrase, warranted or not. It's exhausting to listen to him, each impromptu, each sonata movement, becoming a draining experience of energetic power overcoming grave pessimism. Kabalevsky succumbed to Stalin's decrees against formalistic art, and he has never been taken seriously in the West. Malofeev, though, found a riveting, antiwar core to the sonata otherwise dismissed as an empty virtuoso score known mainly from Vladimir Horowitz's recording.
The second half of the recital proved more draining still. In Malofeev's subjugating hands, Janácek's vaporously evocative 'In the Mists' became 'In the Thick, Disorienting and Blinding Fog' and led, without a pause, into Liszt's doomed and drummed 'Funérailles,' creating an extraordinary sonic vista. This was followed by four elusive Scriabin miniature preludes, Opus 22, and Scriabin's harmonic flight-of-fancy Opus 28 Fantasie.
As an encore for this unhackneyed recital, Malofeev turned Rachmaninoff's ultra-hackneyed Prelude in C Minor into something so monumentally thunderous that it nearly overwhelmed all that had come before it. There seems no limits to the depths Malofeev can reach. He is a pianist who lives in an all-consuming piano space, one that he is just beginning to explore. The very good news is that the classical music industry has yet to put the commercial screws on him, allowing him necessary time to follow his bliss. He has made no recordings (although YouTube provides plenty of live performances). Recordings can come later. He needs to first keep testing the bounds.
Kantorow, who is 27 and was born in Clermont-Ferrand, France, has been pushed in the other direction. He began making records with his father, French violinist and conductor Jean-Jacques Kantorow, more than a decade ago. In 2019, he took first prize in the main Tchaikovsky Competition, followed in 2023 by the Gilmore Artist Award — two of the most attention-getting honors for a young pianist. He's developed into a confident pianist with a flawless technique.
His latest solo recording, released in November, contains Brahms' First Piano Sonata, Liszt arrangements of Schubert songs and Schubert's 'Wanderer Fantasy.' Kantorow produces an enticing brilliance throughout. Still, even a dazzling 'Wanderer' barely stands out from the competition if not original. Brahms' early sonata remains undistinguished except for a stunning rendition of the slow movement.
The L.A. Phil gave Kantorow star billing, placing the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody at the end of the program. The conductor was San Francisco Opera Music Director Eun Sun Kim, who opened the concert with a blunt performance of Rachmaninoff's Third Symphony. In the Rhapsody, though, Kim delivered incisive accompaniment without interfering with Kantorow's sophisticated luminosity.
Even so, the program's highlight turned out to be another concerto, Nico Muhly's Concerto Grosso, given its premiere. A quartet of dissimilar soloists — flute (Denis Bouriakov), trombone (David Rejano Cantero), percussion (Matthew Howard) and cello (Robert DeMaine) — find common ground one moment and flamboyantly go their own ways other moments with no fear of interference. Every turn is an abrupt, novel delight.
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