Münchner Philharmoniker

‘But it's not a concerto!’ - Sergei Rachmaninov expressly emphasised this. With his ‘Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini’, the composer unleashed a tonal firework in 1934 and presented a sequence of variations that did not require a devil violinist, but a devil pianist. It is a fitting task for Alexandre Kantorow, the French pianist who wowed the audience at his first solo recital at the Alte Oper in November 2023. ‘In terms of playing technique, Kantorow simply has everything at his disposal,’ said the FAZ review, and the pianist also left nothing to be desired musically. In the concert with the Munich Philharmonic, Kantorov takes on the solo part in Rachmaninov before the orchestra opens a colourfully illustrated fairytale book: In Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's ‘Scheherazade’, not only are the dazzling stories from the Arabian Nights retold with musical means, but the magic and sensuality of the Orient are also made audible.