Pierre Hantaï | Stiftungskonzert

Music simply comes naturally to Pierre Hantaï. He sits on the piano bench in the concert hall and just absorbs his surroundings at first. Depending on the atmosphere, depending on the audience, he goes on to play Scarlatti sonatas in F major, D minor or who knows!

Bach’s music also came naturally to him. At the age of ten, he heard recordings by the Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, a pioneer of historically informed playing in the seventies, and these recordings inspired him to start playing himself. Today, Hantaï is one of the great harpsichord virtuosos. His fingers always seem to carry a touch of French elegance and wry wit when he performs works by Scarlatti, Handel and Bach on stages across Europe. Hantaï makes this music shine as if the generation born in 1685 were only now in its prime.