Alexei Lyubimov
Alexei Borisovich Lyubimov, born on 16 September 1944 in Moscow, is a Soviet and Russian pianist, harpsichordist, organist, conductor, and teacher. He was awarded the title People's Artist of the Russian Federation in 2003. He studied at the Central Music School in Moscow from 1952 to 1963 in the class of Anna Artobolevskaya, and then at the Moscow Conservatory from 1963 to 1968 with Heinrich Neuhaus and Lev Naumov, graduating with distinction.
Lyubimov came to prominence early: in 1960 he won first prize at the All-Russian Competition of Young Pianists, later became a laureate of the international piano competitions in Rio de Janeiro in 1965 and Montreal in 1968, and appeared at the Warsaw Autumn Festival of contemporary music in 1964. An important influence on his artistic formation was Maria Yudina.
He began his concert career in 1968 and from 1975 became a soloist of the Moscow State Academic Philharmonic. Lyubimov is known for an exceptionally broad repertoire, ranging from English virginalists and eighteenth-century French court music to European Romantic composers and contemporary postwar music. Alongside Boris Berman, Tatiana Grindenko, and Mark Pekarsky, he also worked with electronic music and played in an experimental rock group.
As an organizer and ensemble leader, Lyubimov founded and directed several chamber groups, including Music of the Twentieth Century (1968-1975), the Moscow Baroque Quartet (1975-1982), and the Academy of Early Music, established in 1982 together with Tatiana Grindenko. He led the Early Music Ensemble of the Moscow Conservatory from 1995 to 1997, organized and directed the Moscow contemporary music festival Alternative from 1988 to 1991, participated in organizing avant-garde music festivals in Riga and Tallinn in 1976-1978, and initiated the first Arnold Schoenberg Festival at the Moscow State Academic Philharmonic in 1999. From 1991 he served as artistic director of the music festival in St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Lyubimov has also been active in teaching. From 1968 to 1975 he was an associate professor of chamber ensemble at the Moscow Conservatory. From 1997 to 2010 he headed the Faculty of Historical and Contemporary Performance, whose creation he initiated together with Natalia Gutman and Nikolai Kozhukhar. Since 1998 he has also been a professor of piano at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg.
His repertoire includes solo, chamber, and concerto works by a vast range of composers, among them J. S. Bach and his sons, Couperin, Rameau, Purcell, Mozart, Haydn, Bortniansky, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Glinka, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Ives, Stravinsky, Bartok, Villa-Lobos, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Cage, Silvestrov, Pärt, Martynov, Ustvolskaya, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Denisov, Volkonsky, Peļecis, Rabinovitch, Mansurian, and Knaifel. He has appeared with major Russian and international orchestras and with many distinguished chamber partners. Contemporary composers valued his stylistic insight, precision, and virtuosity, often entrusting him with first performances and dedicating works to him.
By 2006 his discography comprised more than fifty recordings for major international labels. Among them are the complete piano works of Schoenberg, parts of Scriabin-Nemtin's Preliminary Action with Vladimir Ashkenazy, volumes of the Private Collection series, and historically informed recordings of Chopin, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Debussy on period or historically appropriate instruments. Particularly notable are his recordings on an 1843 Pleyel piano, early nineteenth-century fortepianos, replicas of instruments associated with Beethoven, and early twentieth-century Steinway and Bechstein pianos, reflecting his important role in historically informed keyboard performance.