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Donald E. Osborne, Director California Artists Management 564 Market Street, Suite 420, San Francisco, CA 94104-5412 415 362-2787 / fax: 415 362-2838 / Skype: calartistsdon / Email |
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 Download Bio |
Alexei Lubimov |
Born in Moscow, pianist Alexei Lubimov is one
of the most strikingly original musicians performing today. His large repertoire
combined with his dedication to principle and musical morals make him a notable
exception in today’s music scene.
Following studies with Heinrich Neuhaus, Alexei
Lubimov established an early dual passion for baroque music performed on
traditional instruments and 20th-century composers such as Schönberg,
Webern, Stockhausen, Boulez, Ives, Ligeti, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Silvestrov
and Pärt. He has premiered many contemporary works in Russia and founded a music
festival there: “Alternativa,” where they are featured. He formed a quartet
dedicated to baroque music during the 1970s when international travel became
impossible. While performing old and new music, however, Alexei Lubimov has
continued to be an outstanding performer of classical and romantic repertoire as
his many recordings show.
As political restrictions were lifted in Russia
during the 1980s, Alexei Lubimov emerged among the first rank of international
pianists giving concerts in Europe, North America and Japan. He has appeared
with such orchestras such as the Helsinki-, Israel-, Los Angeles-, Munich- and
St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic in London, Russian National
Orchestra, Orchestre Phil. de Radio France, Toronto Symphony and Deutsches
Symphonieorchester Berlin under the most important international conductors:
Ashkenazy, Järvi, Kondrashin, Hogwood, Mackerras, Nagano, Norrington, Saraste,
Salonen, Janovski and Tortelier. He has given historic performances with the
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Wiener Akademie and the Collegium Vocale
Gent. In the world of chamber music, he performs regularly with famous soloists
and ensembles at festivals throughout the world.
In recent seasons he has given concerts with
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra in Moscow and
the Tonkünstlerorchester (2 concerts in the Great Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein)
as well as innumerable solo recitals.
He toured with the Haydn Sinfonietta playing Mozart concertos and played Mozart
with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana under Robert King, Haydn with the
Camerata Salzburg under Sir Roger Norrington in New York, Pärt’s
Lamentate with RSO Vienna under Andrey
Boreyko at the Musikverein and with the Tampere Philharmonic under John
Storgards.
Other highlights include performances of
Prometeus by Scriabin at the Salzburg
Festival and in Copenhagen and performances with the Orchestra of the Age of the
Enlightenment (Beethoven), Munich Philharmonic (Silvestrov), SWR Stuttgart
(Pärt), DSO Berlin (Pärt), Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Pärt), Anima
Eterna Brugge and Russian National Orchestra.
This season he performs in Brussels, Utrecht, Budapest, Lille, London and in New
York City where he appears in recital and with the Budapest Festival Orchestra
under Ivan Fischer.
His recordings have been issued on Melodia, Erato,
BIS and Sony featuring the complete Mozart sonatas, Schubert, Chopin, Beethoven
and Brahms as well as music of the 20th century. He has recorded regularly for
ECM, producing some unusual CDs of particular note: “Der Bote,” with music of
Liszt, Glinka and CPE Bach alongside John Cage and Tigran Mansurian; Arvo Pärt's
Lamentate with the Stuttgart Radio
Symphony; “Messe Noir” with music of Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and
Scriabin; and “Misterioso” with music of Silvestrov, Pärt and Ustvolskaya. His
recording of
Schubert’s Impromptus Op. 90 and Op. 142 was released in 2009 by Harmonia Mundi.
Updated September 2011 – please destroy any previous versions
Press comments:
Lubimov's
peerless recording of Schubert’s:
Here, he
uses just one. The percussive delicacy of his 1828 Graf fortepiano emphasizes
the curious mixture of playfulness and reverence in the E major Sonata, while
embracing the A flat Sonata's symphonic ambition. In the C minor Sonata, heart
and mind are torn between the gravity of the work and the beauty of Lubimov's
musicianship. A thrilling dilemma.
The Independent – April 10, 2011
Haydn’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Budapest
Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer:
“Common to both evenings was a well-known Haydn concerto with a superb
soloist. On Tuesday, the pianist Alexei Lubimov was featured in the Piano
Concerto in D major, to which he brought a feather-light touch, a limpid
radiance in the slow movement and a frolicsome energy in the Hungarian rondo
finale.”
New York Times - Jan. 28, 2011
“Alexei Lubimov gave a lively rendering of the solo part to Haydn’s Piano
Concerto in D major. He dazzled in his solo moments, including his own cadenza
built on an anonymous 18th-century model.”
New
Jersey Star Ledger - Jan 27, 2011
“Last night's performance of Haydn was no less inspired. Piano Concerto
No. 2" --with an exacting and agile piano performance by Alexei
Lubimov--captured the refinement that classical music has come to represent.”
The Jewish Week – Jan. 26, 2011
“This performance pitted a modern Steinway against the period band. Mr.
Lubimov made the case for this anachronistic arrangement with fleet-fingerd
legato playing, and elegant turns of phrase. The final rondo had an almost manic
energy, as the orchestra supported Mr. Lubimov through every twist and turn of
the work.”
super-conductor.blogspot.com - Jan. 26, 2011
“Best of the year”
in the London Independent:
“Alexei Lubimov
pitched muscular pianism against the delicate fortepianos in his peerless
recording of Schubert's Impromptus, my disc of the year.”
The Independent – Dec. 26, 2010
An excellent review for the Schubert Impromptus recording:
“Lubimov’s C minor
Impromptu boasts powerful dynamic surging. Subtle pushes and pulls illuminate
the melodic arc of the E flat’s pearly scales. The soft pedal imparts a
haunting, disembodied quality to the G flat. His curvaceous rubatos and
accentuations lend interest to the A flat minor. If you like the way Frank
Sinatra shapes a melody ahead of and behind the beat, you’ll find a kindred soul
in Lubimov’s phrasing of No. 2’s opening section.”
Gramophone – August 2010
Recital at the Kissinger Sommer Festival:
“When the Kissinger Sommer enters the path of the unusual, it often brings a
great reward for the audience. So it was on Friday afternoon, one of the hottest
afternoons of the week, with 20th Century Russian piano music. The curious came
to be in great demand. With Alexei Lubimov at the piano, we had the one man, who
as an advocate of the Russian avant-garde, holds the special key for this
sometimes unwieldy music. The tension under which Lubimov had to work in the
decades of dictatorship until the dissolution of the Soviet Union were reflected
in repertoire that ranged from historical performance practice on fortepiano to
the rugged Brutalism of Russian modernism. The brilliant Alexei Lubimov worked
out the characteristics of composition of his compatriots finely and
sensitively, his somewhat sharp articulation fitting the works that followed:
Russian classics of Shostakovich, Scriabin and Prokofiev. His Piano Sonata No. 7
from the war-year 1942, with its striking motor activity and its aggressive
Expressionism naturally outshone the rest at the conclusion of a wisely chosen
program.”
Main Post – July 27, 2010
With the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at Queen Elizabeth Hall as a
last-minute replacement:
“The inevitable sense of anticlimax was largely allayed by the seasoned Russian
pianist Alexei Lubimov. As a sparring match between Lubimov and an orchestra
that had just shown its muscle in the Coriolan Overture, the concerto threatened
to be an uneven contest. But Lubimov’s firm and persuasive way with Beethoven’s
melodic lines gave him equal footing. His phrasing spurred the wind soloists on,
and he introduced some sudden, magical pedal effects.”
The Guardian - May 28, 2010
“Stepping into the breach
as soloist was Alexei Lubimov who played on a fortepiano, offering a different
experience from the norm given the instrument’s softer sound, restricted range,
and limited ability to sustain. But any such initial impression soon passed as
the ears acclimatized, and a delightful sense of intimacy was experienced. In
his playing, momentary flaws were of no account when set next to the crystalline
delicacy of his performance and his ability to sustain sound. After the
first-movement cadenza, touchingly effective here, the veiled effect achieved by
the fortepiano’s dampened strings was quite special. Lubimov brought a
beautifully simple expressivity to the Largo and the orchestra’s accompaniment
was equally memorable. There was real bounce to the finale, Lubimov’s nimble
playing counterpoised with many more entrancing orchestral timbres.”
Classical Source.com
- May 25, 2010
With the London Philharmonic under Neeme Järvi:
“Alexei Lubimov found an ideal sonority and combined perfectly with the
orchestra; I’d never heard a more satisfactory and engrossing performance of
romantic piano concerto in the Festival Hall. His tone was full, and well
balanced even when playing with the orchestra. A small figure at the keyboard,
he has an admirable technique and found power without forcing or any visible
effort.”
Musical Pointers -
May 2010
Recording: Schubert,
Impromptus Opus 90 & 142: Zig-Zag Records:
“The Russian pianist
Alexei Lubimov is nothing if not a perfectionist, and he searched long and hard
(over four years, in fact) to find historical instruments that would satisfy his
requirements in these pieces. Both instruments are capable of subtle gradations
of colour, and it’s worth putting up with the occasional creak from the keyboard
action, or perhaps the pedals, for the sake of the beauty of tone Lubimov coaxes
from them. It would be hard, for instance, to imagine a warmer or more lyrical
performance of the song without words that forms the penultimate piece from the
D899 collection; or a smoother and more delicate account of the pianissimo first
variation on the Rosamunde theme in Impromptu No. 3 from D935. (Anyone who’s
tried playing those variations themselves will know how hard that is to bring
off.) Lubimov has opted to play the outer sections of the Allegretto second
piece of D935 with the so-called moderator pedal, which interposes a piece of
cloth between hammers and strings, to produce a veiled sound. The tone-quality
is well suited to the start of pianissimo theme itself, though it makes its more
forceful second half sound curiously muted. It’s possible, too, to feel that
Lubimov makes a meal out of the characteristically Schubertian turn from minor
to major in the opening number of the D899 set. But this is altogether a
beautiful recital by a master-pianist, and while there’s no shortage of fine
recordings of these famous pieces, there has been none in my experience to equal
Lubimov on instruments of Schubert’s day.”
BBC Music Magazine – May 2010
“Alexei Lubimov is not one of those fingerless pianists who would have chosen
pianoforte to find a place under the sun nor a specialist from the baroque
world: he is an absolute pianist, known from the USRR for his contemporary music
recitals and his involvement in resurecting Scriabin’s last work (L’acte
prealable). A sort of a Russian Pollini, who is now 65. His first French
recordings, though, were dedicated to Mozart on pianoforte (Erato). So here is
this great artist, this great musician, original but always on the right track,
the music’s track not the ego’s, playing Schubert on two pianofortes with strong
personalities, very well captured. But a beautiful sound without the phrases,
breathing and rhythmic vitality eloquence would only be an ocean of nice piano.
But with Lubimov’s very unique natural sophistication, tenderness and proximity
of playing, one forgets the piano's sounds and dives into Schubert’s mystery,
caught up in the infinitely subtle nuances that make music. Everything flows
naturally.”
Diapason - March 2010
“It’s amazing what can
find its way into an attic. An 1810 Matthias Müller piano, for instance, now
restored and used for the first set of Schubert’s Impromptus, D899, in Andrei
Lubimov’s recording. It’s a beautiful instrument. Use of its soft pedal in the G
flat major work emphasises the gentlest twang of the string, the accompanimental
arpeggios are wonderfully clear and there is power in reserve for the darker
music at the heart of the A flat Impromptu. The piano used for the D935 set is a
Joseph Schantz, built in 1830. It offers a less silvery, more rounded sound.
This disc is not just a sonic exhibition, however, but a series of deeply
satisfying, expressive performances.”
The Times (London) - February 21, 2010
“That crises often result
in good, is a truism. However, this requires a good deal of patience and
fortitude - both virtues that the Moscow pianist Alexei Liubimov possesses
sufficiently. Because he played too much avant-garde music, Soviet cultural
officials denied him all foreign travel in the 80’s. Liubimov opted for the
homeland and everywhere in the USSR he met colleagues with whom explored baroque
music and performance practice. On the harpsichord. At the time, he was denied
his greatest desire: to play the classics on the historical pianoforte. In
Brezhnev's Soviet Union, there was never such an instrument. It had to wait for
the fall of the Berlin Wall, for Liubimov to let in his ideal sounds from
Western Europe. To play Schubert’s eight
Impromptus Liubimov search for five years to find the perfect instrument.
Finally, in April a few years ago, the Russian pianist found in Holland pianos
from the early 19th Century, by Matthias Müller and Joseph Schantz, which
perfectly met Liubimov’s sound image. His playing is - quite casually and
unobtrusively – with so much brilliant virtuosity and dexterity that it makes
one dizzy. Above all, it has a poetic radiance, wisdom and poignant emotional
sensitivity that can arrest with what makes this music so supernaturally
Schubert: the impossible fusion of pain and beauty.”
Bavarian Radio – February 20, 2010
“Educated in the Soviet
school of vividly coloured pianism, Alexei Lubimov brings muscularity and vision
to the fortepiano. It took five years just to find the right instruments for
this recording and the result is breathtaking. Aside from the crispest E- flat
Impromptu, the bitter grandeur of the A-flat major, and the delectable
translucency of the instruments, what is truly startling is the “sung” melody of
the G flat major. Stunning.”
The Independent – February 14, 2010
“Sadness and joy. Lubimov superbly suggests
this paradoxical ubiquity through his playing and instrumental options. He
chooses for the first cycle, the most brutal, the most tragic one, a Matthias
Müller piano, sharp as a declaration of war, with bristly hammers and bronze
like high notes. This instrument has nothing to do with the fashionable salon's
amiable antiquity anymore, and became a merciless war machine to x-ray the
sound, the polyphony and the soul. Lubimov is also merciless in the way he bares
Schubert's suffering instead of concealing it, behind the smile of a melody or
confronting the fascinating duel of rebellion and resignation. Listening to the
second instrument is similar: compatssonate but dignified and never whining.
Lubimov fathoms abysses of despair behind deceptive coolness, or the dance's
rhythmic élan. ‘Sadness and joy: we were warned.”
Classica –
“Choc”
(highest award)
– February 2010
Headline: “Between us and Paradise”
“If the western marketing
industry had integrated him, he would have been as appreciated here as the
French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard: both are exceptional pianists because they
have directed their tremendous skills towards contemporary music and promoted,
with great openness, early music practice. Lubimov phrases very precisely,
though not stiff, like someone who would recite those verses with inherent
sympathy. He speaks through his fingers: very sensitive, light and finely cut.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung – January 5, 2010
Rachmaninoff Piano
Concerto in G Minor, London Philharmonic, New York City:
“The pianist Alexei Lubimov gave a stellar performance of the work at Avery
Fisher Hall on Sunday afternoon with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted
by Vladimir Jurowski. Mr. Lubimov performed the concerto with fiery panache. He
energetically plunged into the chordal opening and gracefully played the
enigmatic Chopinesque theme later in the first movement. Mr. Jurowski, the
Philharmonic’s principal conductor since 2007, led a richly hued performance
that mirrored the pianist’s spirited interpretation. The wit of the first
section is replaced by a Grieg-like lyricism in the more melodic second
movement, rendered here with soothing introspection by orchestra and soloist.
Mr. Lubimov’s virtuosic playing in the exuberant finale - featuring an initial
mad dash that soon morphs into Rachmaninoff’s familiar lushness - was notable
for its crisply defined energy. This almost jazzy movement ends in boisterous
triumph.”
New York Times – March 2, 2009
Misterioso, ECM New Series
1959:
“The
performances are superb, completely in tune with the aesthetic of all the
pieces, and up to their technical challenges. I realize that I’ve been less than
enthusiastic about some of the works on the program, but overall I find this a
creatively conceived and excellently realized program, and a good introduction
to unusual chamber music from this neck of the woods.”
Fanfare Magazine – March/April
2007
“This music casts a
powerful spell and, given the superb recording quality, the new disc is one that
deserves to be widely heard.”
Gramophone - Awards Issue – 2006
Pärt:
Da pacem Domine,
Lamentate,,
ECM 1930:
“The
performances are outstanding, though from both ECM and these performers one
wouldn’t expect less. Lubimov maintains the perfection of even tone and touch
necessary to make materials glow that could be anemic in less musical hands.
ECM’s sound is, as usual, sumptuous. The program is a little short, and it would
have been nice to have one more work at least. At the same time, I’d rather have
this music than wait for something else to fill it out if it’s not readily
available. A cause for pleasure—and celebration of a composer whose vision
continues to grow.”
Fanfare Magazine – January / February 2006
Messe Noire.
ECM 1679
“This disc of early
twentieth-century Russian piano works sat on the shelves at ECM for nearly six
years – an almost unbelievable situation, because it’s one of the most
remarkably satisfying solo piano recordings I’ve had the pleasure of hearing in
a very long time. Don’t be mislead by the title; the music in this disc is so
stylistically varied, it’s hard to believe that three of the four composers here
were contemporaries. Each of the four works presented here is its own highlight.
Sonically, this disc is a knockout – in usual fashion, ECM has captured the
sound of the piano with such remarkable realism that, yes, Alexei Lubimov is
right there in the room with you. Very highly recommended.”
AudiophileAudition.com – November 2, 2006
“Alexei Lubimov is best known as a
maverick. He has long been a champion of the avant-garde (both Western and
Soviet), starting back when it was a perilous choice for Soviet pianists; at the
opposite end of the spectrum, he has been an advocate for period-performance
practice; then, too, he has lent support to off-beat ventures like Nemtin’s
“realization” of the Prologue to Scriabin’s
Mysterium. But as a student of both Heinrich Neuhaus and Maria
Yudina, Lubimov also claims a place of pride in the Great Tradition of Soviet
pianists; and on this disc, he tackles three sonatas that are central to the
20th-century Russian canon. He plays them magnificently, too. The first movement
of the Prokofiev clearly displays his interpretive reach: because of his dry
tone and his exceptional voicing, the rhythmic crosscurrents of the first theme
emerge with particular vitality; yet he sounds like a different pianist entirely
as the second theme—slow, hazy, supple—stretches out to seduce your ear. The
same attention to the music’s emotional range emerges in the contrast between
the second and third movements, the Andante caloroso even more dreamy and
hypnotic than usual, the deliberate finale thundered out with crushing weight.
Lubimov makes a still stronger showing in the Shostakovich, where he once again
expertly captures the music’s competing aesthetic demands. On the one hand, he
etches the spare textures with just the right antiseptic rigor, and punches out
the manic outbursts with an unyielding solidity that bares the music’s grim
determination. But he’s equally compelling as he explores the paradoxically
catatonic intimacy of the Largo. All in all, this stands with Gilels’s among the
most convincing recordings of this sonata in the catalog. Lubimov’s
stone-and-shadows approach would seem ideal for the Scriabin Ninth; and since
that’s the piece that both closes the recital and gives it its title, my
expectations were high. In the event, it turns out to be an emotionally diffuse
performance that catches neither the perfume nor the poison. Still, for the
Prokofiev and Shostakovich, this disc is well worth attention, even for those
who already own several competing accounts. The artful presentation of the
Stravinsky makes a fine overture (I especially appreciated the shots of
cocktail-pianist indolence in the second movement and the rhythmic verve of the
third); and the sound on my pre-production disc was strikingly immediate.
Strongly recommended.”
Fanfare Magazine – November / December 2005
“We know that fashions
change, and tastes with them. In the case of Romantic piano music, and of
Chopin's works in particular, the early post-war preference for relative
understatement has in recent years given way to the brand of recreative
individualism. Think of Argerich, Pogorelich, Pletnev, Lubimov, Kissin, Freire
and Leonskaja.”
Gramophone – April 2005
Portrait of Arvo Pärt: Naxos Records:
“An outstanding
performance of “For Alina” by Alexei Lubimov begins the Naxos two-CD ‘Portrait
of Pärt’.”
Los Angeles Times – October 30, 2005
Silvestrov:
Metamusik.
Postludium ECM 1790:
“The
piano—played here by Alexei Lubimov, Silvestrov’s most dedicated interpreter—is
almost constantly central to the texture; the orchestra doesn’t have a role
independent from the soloist, rather the piano and the orchestra work together
to create an integrated larger sound, most of the time. Sometimes the piano is
alone.
Metamusik (1992) is the larger of the two
works, a single movement of nearly 48 minutes. It was written for Lubimov. The
piece features stylistic mimicry, maybe quotation that I can’t readily identify,
and quotation from earlier works by Silvestrov, folded into washes of
arpeggiation and figuration. Above all, the music has the impression of being
suspended in time; things move slowly and last a long time. The effect is
dreamlike. Performances are excellent and poetic, and sound is great.”
Fanfare Magazine – November/ December 2003
Schnittke, Shostakovich: ECM New
Series
461 815-2:
“The Kellers are
equally convincing in Schnittke’s piano quintet, adhering to the composer’s
tightly wound mode of expression, but again allowing for the escapism of overt
emotionalism—the tolling bell effect of Alexei Lubimov’s piano, the second
movement’s waltz, a la Shostakovich, that is overcome by ghostly string
apparitions, the occasional harsh harmonies. In their refusal to cushion the
blow in these moments, they register a deeper degree of despair, perhaps, than
do the Vermeer Quartet.”
Fanfare Magazine – July/August 2003
“In Schnittke's solo piano
opening, Alexei Lubimov shows the requisite temperament and control of sonority,
and both he and the Kellers keep us inside the Quintet's world through the first
movement's obsessive, quarter-tone-inflected bell-tolling, through the
ghost-train-ride of the film-derived Tempo di valse, through the catatonic
laments of the nvo succeeding slow movements, all the way to the anxious
transfigurations of the finale. Curiously, Lubimov goes against the score in the
final phrase, where Schnittke asks for pitched notes to fade into the noise of
fingertips tapping on the keys, echoing the pedal-knocking at the end of the
first movement. But his carefully graded diminuendo is effective enough in its
own way, and overall this is the only recorded performance I know of to rival
Ludmil la Berlinslcy and the Borodins.
Gramophone – May 2003
Der Bote: ECM New Series:
“ECM’s lush sound seems totally in the
spirit of this music. Poppen, Lubimov, and the Munich Chamber Orchestra maintain
the perfect blend of poise, refinement, and knowing naiveté. Overall, this is a
disc I can come back to again and again.”
Fanfare Magazine – January/February 2008
“An intriguing programme
of elegiac music drawn from several nations and centuries. Melancholy ...
nostalgic pictures ... quiet meditation - all phrases which come into play in
Alexei Lubimov's foreword to the present collection, and all apposite to one or
another of the 10 pieces featured. The freely-evolving monologue - now
ruminative, now capricious - of CPE Bach's Fantasia in F sharp minor provides an
uncharacteristically substantial opening to a disc in which 'elegy' is expressed
in generally inward-looking terms. Thus the exquisite, marble-frozen intricacy
ofJohn Cage's Inn landscape, or the improvisatoriness of Tigran Mansurian's
Nostalgia - perfectly poised between East and West in tonal expression. The
liquid prosody of Valentin Silvestrov's Elegie, a subtle reminder of his more
than dutiful credentials in the 1960s avant-garde, finds a natural context in
the company of Debussy's stoic Elégie (a self-commemoration as Ivan Moody
rightly points out) and the first of Bartok's harmonically ambivalent Dirges.
Der Bote concludes the disc as Silvestrov's half-remembered recollection of
another world - pain giving way to an enveloping poignancy. Undemonstrative
playing from Luhimov, a questing pianist whose appearances in the West have
become a welcome occurrence in the post-Soviet era. The sound is appropriately
spacious. Warmly recommended in any event.”
Gramophone – July 2003
“The Most Distinctive Disks Of 2002” “Alexei Lubimov: Der Bote”
(“The Messenger”)
(ECM)—While none of the alluring miniatures (by such composers as Glinka,
Debussy, Chopin, and Cage) on this album are especially well known, this Russian
pianist's impulsive, jazzlike style—crisp attacks emerging from gentle vapors of
pedal—is so hauntingly persuasive that each one seems indispensable.”
New Yorker - January 20, 2002
“Alexei Lubimov has championed Silvestrov's music elsewhere, and so it is
not surprising to see two more of his works appearing on
Der Bote. Over two
centuries separate the earliest and latest works on this CD. Lubimov is less
interested in contrasts than in similarities, though. In fact, like Silvestrov,
he is in search of a never-ending song of endings, an elegy for and of elegies.
Silvestrov's
Der Bote seems to wrap-around into C.P.E. Bach's F Sharp
minor Fantasy, the work that opens this disc. The elegiac carpet that Lubimov
weaves extends into infinity. Lubimov's generous use of the sustaining pedal and
the reverberant recording venue wraps this program in romantic mists. His tone
is jeweled and his touch always poetic. This could be one of the great
late-night listening CDs in your collection.” Classical.net – 2002
“Der Bote” (“The Messenger”), a June
release on ECM from the pianist Alexei Lubimov, is one of a number of
tantalizing disks that may mark a return to the art of the miniature, to
programs that emphasize the performer's instincts over the cookie-cutter
strategies of concert promoters. It strings together a number of short, elegiac
pieces by Chopin, Glinka, Debussy, Cage, and others; while none of the works are
especially well known, Lubimov’s performances are so hauntingly persuasive that
each one seems indispensable. The pianist's free, impulsive, jazzlike
style—crisp attacks emerging from gentle vapors of pedal—lightens what could
have been an overload of nostalgia.”
New Yorker – May 27, 2002
Onslow Hubeau; Marder; Nielsen Qnt Apex 0 0927-49536-2:
“Alexei Lubimov’s account
of the Sonata is a tour de force of controlled virtuosity; rather shallow
recorded sound doesn't hide the magnificent, poetical effect of this
extraordinary work.”
Gramophone – May 2003
“...brisk, free of cinematic sentiment...he
gives the illusion of keeping strict time while subtly pushing and pulling at
tempos... After all, this is what Mozart is about.”
New York Times
“Mr. Lubimov’s piano playing had an easier time, offering a shining, easy
beauty that filled the hall.”
New York Times
“Lubimov proved himself a flexible, inspired partner. For him, selfless
following obviously is no more fruitful than aggressive leading. The versatile
Muscovite did his own Romantic singing at the keyboard - always warm and
sympathetic, virtuousic yet understated, assertive yet poetic. Don't call him an
accompanist.” Los Angeles Times
“Lubimov’s
instrument...played once by Mozart himself...comes to life when played with the
musicality and sense of fantasy displayed by this remarkable pianist.”
The Sunday Times (London)
“In familiar Liszt and
Chopin, Lubimov offered more imaginative faithfulness than I have heard in some
time, different in innumerable details from the "standard" readings. But every
time one thought, "Now, there's something you couldn't do on a modern grand!" It
was also something that perhaps only Lubimov would have thought of doing anyway.
The sound never seemed miniaturised: the third and fourth Chopin Ballades rose
to glorious climaxes, and the three members of the audience who left before the
encores missed a magnificent Barcarolle.”
The Financial Times (London)
“...absolutely beautiful...he shows a real command of what that sort of
instrument can give you in the way articulation and shaping.”
BBC Radio 3 Record Review
“...quite a
revelation...Lubimov brings a big, modern technique to bear on these (Mozart)
sonatas...K533's marvelous first movement has lots of incredible, rich
counterpoint and tremendous harmonic twists which Lubimov makes the most
of...the slow movement, too, is really superb where he builds up the phrases and
sequences architecturally with careful timing...”
BBC Radio 3 Record Review
“Lubimov's instrument...played once by Mozart himself...comes to life when
played with the musicality and sense of fantasy displayed by this remarkable
pianist.”
The Sunday Times
“Genuine, captivating Chopin dramatics!”
Hufvudstadabladet (Helsinki)
“The music really catches
life in his hands: even the simplest tones start talking and to speak.”
Turun Sanomat (Finland)
“Alexei Lubimov demonstrated with Chopin's Ballade in g minor how
beautiful an Erard grand from 1850 can sound.”
Die Welt (Berlin)
“With small musical details and an excellent musical execution, Lubimov
brought the work (Mozart KV 595) to life, joyfully and brilliantly.”
Aamulehti (Finland)
“...Lubimov always surprises. His musical thinking is clear like crystal
and always inspired. He possesses a rare gift; he can transplant the musical
ideas of the composer into reality. He is a genius without the aura of a
genius.”
Turun Sanomat (Finland)