The German pianist and conductor Lars Vogt had made no secret of it: he had been fighting inoperable liver cancer since March 2021, which ended up winning on September 5, a few days before he turned 52, at the hospital in Erlangen, in the suburbs of Nuremberg where he lived. Almost to the end, he courageously continued to perform, arguing that music was therapy for him.
We remember his last concerts at the La Roque-d’Anthéron International Piano Festival, on July 23 and 24, 2021, with the Paris Chamber Orchestra. A Fifth Symphony of Beethoven whipped to blood, between Promethean challenge and cry for help, then, the next day, the Concerto pour piano n° 24 by Mozart, led from the keyboard by a demiurge musician, an interpretation in a state of emergency whose tragic aura had stunned the public. “Music can consolehe confided two months later to the microphone of Jean-Baptiste Urbain on France Musique. Making music with friends, working together on the music we love, we forget everything. »
Born on September 8, 1970 in Düren, in western Germany, Lars Vogt studied piano with Ruth Weiss in Aix-la-Chapelle and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover before winning, in 1990, second prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition (UK). His vigorous and natural playing ignores virtuoso temptation, deploying instead a refined sense of color and nuance. Whether in Bach, Mozart, Brahms or Mendelssohn (whose Concertos with the Orchester de chambre de Paris sign his last disc, at Ondine), the musician deploys a ductile touch, capable of moving from shadow to light, from poetry to humor, from tragedy to joy.
Fervent chamber musician
Invited to the greatest stages with symphonic formations such as the Orchester de Paris, the Staatskapelle of Dresden, the Philharmonics of Berlin, Vienna and New York, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, Lars Vogt was the first pianist in residence with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2003-2004. Having become a conductor himself, he will admit to having learned a lot by working with Claudio Abbado, Daniel Harding, Maris JanssonPaavo Järvi, Andris Nelsons ou encore Sir Simon Rattle. Whether on the keyboard or on the podium, the German musician has conducted numerous chamber orchestras (including a successful tour with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra), as well as the Symphony Orchestras of Sydney, Singapore and New Zealand.
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