The Philharmonie de Paris wished to celebrate Ivry Gitlis. The evening mixed music and some talks with the old master. I should immediately mention that if he is old of age (96), Gitlis is young at heart and full of wit.
After a brief introduction, the 1st part of the evening was dedicated to music, mainly classical, with a long list of friends or former pupils queuing to play. Some of them said a few words to the audience or more privately just to Ivry, and one even wrote some sort of a poem.
The great pianist Nicholas Angelich and violinist Renaud Capuçon were playing Brahms Violin & Piano Sonatas at the Philharmonie de Paris.
This is far from being the 1st time they play these works together on stage – and they also have recorded them, as well as the Piano Trios and Quartets.
I doubt there ever was such a profusion of pianists on the Philharmonie de Paris stage before that evening: Martha Argerich, Stephen Kovacevich, Nicholas Angelich, the excellent Akane Sakai and Lilya Zilberstein and the Buniatishvili sisters. But pianists were not everything as they were joined by Renaud Capuçon (violin), Edgar Moreau, (cello), and percussionists Jean-Claude Gengembre and Camille Baslé, to play pieces of various format (piano solo, 4 hands, 2 pianos, chamber music…).