To the schedule

Piano recital with Alexandre Tharaud

Alexandre Tharaud (photo: Laura Bernard / Parlophone Records Limited)

“The piano is just an instrument through which I can give something to other people,” says Alexandre Tharaud. Thanks to this approach as well as his supple, calm but at the same time intense way of music-making, the French pianist has played his way to the top. In his wide-ranging repertoire, the music of France from the Baroque to the Modern plays a central role. In our concert, works by Rameau and Ravel will form the framework of the programme. In between, we will hear Grieg’s Lyric Pieces and Tharaud’s own transcription of the dreamlike Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.

Alexandre Tharaud piano

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Quatrième suite de pièces de clavecin: Excerpts

Edvard Grieg

Lyric Pieces: Selection

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 5: Adagietto (arr. by Alexandre Tharaud)

Maurice Ravel

Miroirs

Dates and Tickets

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Biographies

Alexandre Tharaud is a pianist who can elicit a breathtaking range of sounds from his instrument with a varied touch. As a child, the French native originally wanted to become a magician. “But the work of a pianist is almost the same. It’s a profession that lets you dream. You work with your fingers, you make use of artistic devices, you conceal or reveal something. It’s playing with energy.” Tharaut, who won first prize in piano at the Paris Conservatory at the age of only 17, loves to record albums. “Essentially, I have two jobs: the first is that of the concert pianist, the second, that of the studio pianist – and the two are extremely different,” says Tharaud, whose discography comprises more than 25 solo albums, most of which have received international awards. He has recorded music by Couperin, Bach and Scarlatti to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms and Rachmaninov to the most important 20th-century French composers. The greatest gift for him is being able to play before audiences all over the world, however: “The most important thing in my life is the stage.” He appears with orchestras such as the Orchestre de Paris, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.