Alexei Lubimov

Alexei Lubimov – Joseph Haydn : The Seven Last Words of Christ (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:04:20 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Zig-Zag Territoires

Although it is played on a period instrument, no one is arguing that this recording of Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ is historically authentic. The work, exceptionally in Haydn’s output, exists in multiple versions, for orchestra, string quartet, chorus, and keyboard (either fortepiano or harpsichord). But surely Haydn did not have the instrument heard here, the rare tangent piano, in his head. This was, speaking roughly, a piano-harpsichord hybrid that never really found its footing in the late 18th century. As long as listeners are down with the idea of a fairly speculative recording, the effect of the tangent piano in this particular work is electrifying. Lubimov gets the best of both worlds: the intimacy of the keyboard version and the dynamic contrasts and timbral shadings of the orchestral original. The keyboard transcription is not by Haydn himself but was made in his own time, and he approved it. Lubimov works from this, tweaking it and adding contrasts that break up the seven consecutive slow movements and give them an extraordinarily expressive quality. Even when listeners know it’s coming, the final Terremoto movement, depicting the earthquake following Christ’s crucifixion, comes as a shock. Listeners will never hear the work quite the same way again after experiencing this recording, and even if Haydn didn’t intend it this way, most may well end up wishing he had.
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Alexei Lubimov – Dussek: Concerto for Two Pianos & Chamber Works (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:25:05 minutes | 1,53 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

”Is it Schubert? Chopin? Or Brahms?” boldly asks the accompanying booklet for this recording of Dussek’s works. One may wonder whether there aren’t some Beethoven influences – and there are! – and even some Weber, but in fact, history runs backwards as the Concerto for 2 Pianos, Op.63 presented here dates back to 1806, the Rondo Concertant is from 1809 and the Quintet from 1799, prior (or at best at the same time) to the time when Weber conceived his great works. Indeed, many tendancies are evocative of a young Chopin and his Concertos. In many regards, Dussek was a visionary: his orchestration is particularly audacious – this is in fact more of a concert symphony than a traditional concerto – and his harmonic mood swings are especially bold and delightful … The Quintet itself is also unique: it was put together for the same unusual orchestra as Schubert’s Trout Quintet, meaning a violin, alto, cello, double bass, and piano. With its exquisitely free flowing writing, the work contains many surprises for the listener to discover on their own. The album ends with Notturno concertant for horn, violin, and piano. The two fortepianos are played by Alexei Lubimov and Olga Pashchenko, one is a copy of a Walter instrument and the other is a Longman/Clementi.

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Alexei Lubimov – Alexei Lubimov : Ludwig van Beethoven : Moonlight, Waldstein & Storm (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:06:47 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

Among Ludwig van Beethoven’s most popular piano sonatas are the Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, “Moonlight,” the Sonata No. 21 in C major,”Waldstein,” and the Sonata No. 17 in D minor, “The Storm” (also known as “The Tempest”). Because of their great familiarity and variety of moods, they are excellent choices for demonstrating how Beethoven’s music sounded on an instrument of his time, such as the of the 1802 Erard pianoforte, of which a modern copy by Christopher Clarke is used in these period-style performances by Alexei Lubimov. Where one might expect power, smoothness, and a rich, rounded tone from a modern concert grand, the sound of this pianoforte is slightly muted in soft passages, clangorous at its loudest, and even a little buzzing in its overtones. Nowhere are these qualities more shocking than in the first movement of “Moonlight,” where the music takes on a remote and antique quality, reminiscent perhaps of a cimbalom or harpsichord in certain notes. But if, after hearing this movement, the listener has acclimatized to the instrument’s quirky sonorities (which are quite variable throughout the disc), then the album can be enjoyed as a masterly recital of Beethoven’s music and the instrument’s attractive possibilities. The hybrid SACD is well-protected by a hardcover book, which not only has informative liner notes but several full color photographs of the pianoforte.
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Alexei Lubimov – Ives, Berg & Webern: Concord (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:03:13 minutes | 533 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Zig-Zag Territoires

Lest anyone think modernist piano pieces all sound the same or operate on the same premises, Alexei Lubimov has chosen a program of key works that are not only quite varied in style, content, and expression, but are distinctive because of their originality. Charles Ives’ iconoclastic Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord, Mass., 1840-60,” is an excellent example of his method of freely juxtaposing chaotic dissonances and jagged rhythms with raucous quotations of popular melodies and hymn tunes, in a spirit of rugged American individualism. To contrast this sonata, Lubimov has selected works from the Second Viennese School, to demonstrate the approaches taken by Anton Webern in his dodecaphonic Piano Variations, and Alban Berg in his loosely atonal Piano Sonata, Op. 1. Where Webern strives for a delicate balance of pitches and a purity of ideas, Berg’s music is intensely emotional, languid, and unsettled, and these characteristics show that their approaches diverged as much from each other as they did from Ives. Lubimov’s playing is sensitive and sympathetic, and his clear interpretations make this album something of a revelation, even for those who know these pieces well. To be sure, they are still challenging today, many decades after they were written, and they are enjoyed most by well-informed and adventurous listeners. Lubimov provides a fine introduction to these landmarks of modernism, and this exceptional disc from Zig Zag Territoires and Outhere Music is highly recommended.

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Alexei Lubimov – Dussek: Complete Piano Sonatas, Op. 44 & Op. 77 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:35 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Brilliant Classics

If you had to name the bridge between Beethoven and Schubert, it would have to be Dusek. Sadly, his lack of a local following – Beethoven, Mozart, Hayden, Schubert and Brahms all had adopted home towns to root for them, after all – has made him less of an obvious choice. Born in Lithuania, he went to live in St Petersburg, where he dodged deportation to Siberia by moving to Paris, where he dodged a revolutionary tribunal by fleeing to London, which he had to leave in a hurry in order to escape prison, winding up in Hamburg… And eventually he would find himself in Prague, and, finally, Paris, where he died at the age of just 52. For this third volume of his complete sonatas, Alexei Lubimov – playing a 1799 Longman-Clementi fortepiano – has chosen two monuments of his mature period: the 18th Sonata “L’Adieu” of 1800 and the staggering 28th Sonata “The Invocation” from 1812. These works reveal a Dussek who is anchored as much in the past – with Bach’s polyphonic rigour and an elegance of writing taken from Mozart and Hayden – as he is in the present, with the power of Beethoven; and indeed the future with impressive turns of harmonic and pianistic daring. His years spent with London’s Broadwood piano-makers, with whom he would work on many innovations, were clearly not in vain. Alexei Lubimov studied with Heinrich Neuhaus – the great Russian piano teacher – and at the start of his career specialised in the hyper-avant-garde of Boulez, Cage and Stockhausen, before turning towards period instruments, which he was the first to bring to the very conservative Moscow Conservatory. From the 1980s he was able to excite the interest of the whole Soviet musical world in the fortepiano, before developing a global career.
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