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Must watch: Pianist Daniil Trifonov at the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris

By John Terauds on January 13, 2013

Daniil Trifonov at the Verbier Festival last summer (Verbier Festival photo).
Daniil Trifonov at the Verbier Festival last summer (Verbier Festival photo).

If there’s one bit of listening you do today, make it young Russian Daniil Trifonov, the current It Boy of the piano world. He gave a spectacularly fine solo recital at the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris on Thursday afternoon, which is available for free high-definition streaming.

Think of this as a prelude to the recital he will give at Koerner Hall on April 14 — a month or so after his 22nd birthday. The two programmes share Franz Liszt’s fierce B minor Piano Sonata.

It’s fascinating to watch and listen as Trifonov shapes the music so elegantly, yet also makes the music sound dramatically spontaneous.

I preferred listening rather than watching. Especially with the frequent camera close-ups, the pianist frequently looks like he’s on the verge of orgasm, but what his lithe fingers are doing is actually far more subtle than that.

Two personal favourites on the Paris programme were Trifonov’s own medley he calls Rachmaniana, and the first encore, the Russian composer’s transcription of the Gavotte from J.S. Bach third Partita for Solo Violin.

The free medici.tv stream is available here. Signing up is easy, in case you need to register first.

I checked out the ticketing situation for the Koerner Hall concert and, as of Sunday morning, the majority of seats with a view of the keyboard had already been sold. There are a few left on the second balcony.

You’ll find the Toronto details here.

Here is Trifonov last year in Moscow at the Arthur Rubinstein Competition with the Bach-Rachmaninov encore, followed by more of the Partita (Prelude, Gavotte, Rondo & Gigue) at the hands of Rachmaninov himself:

John Terauds

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