Pierre-Laurent Aimard in conversation with Stephan Koncz (9 min.)

In his third and last piano concerto, Béla Bartók used compositional techniques ranging from Baroque polyphony to chorales, to Hungarian folklore, to Liszt-like virtuosity and musical descriptions of nature. A more suitable interpreter can hardly be imagined for the work than the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who was the soloist in a Berliner Philharmoniker concert in October 2019. After all, Aimard’s repertoire also extends from Bach’s music to contemporary compositions. In a conversation with Philharmoniker cellist Stephan Koncz, the pianist explains the difficult conditions of Bartók’s concerto’s genesis, and describes the challenges that the composer sets its performers.