Alexei Lubimov

Alexei Lubimov ranks among Russia’s most active and wide-ranging pianists, encompassing repertory that stretches from the earliest keyboard works through the avant-garde compositions of the twentieth century. He is equally at home on the harpsichord and fortepiano.

Born in Moscow in 1944, Lubimov trained at the Moscow Central Music School before matriculating at the Moscow Conservatory in 1963, where Heinrich Neuhaus and Lev Naumov guided his studies. While there he pursued Baroque repertoire and twentieth-century scores alongside the standard literature. Despite official Soviet resistance, he introduced the country to music by Charles Ives, Arnold Schoenberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and other Western avant-garde figures, an activity that led to a temporary prohibition on foreign travel. During those years he concentrated on period instruments and historically informed performance, pursuits then uncommon in the Soviet Union. He established the Moscow Baroque Quartet, helped create the Moscow Chamber Academy, and launched the contemporary-music festival Alternativa. In 1990 he began issuing a complete set of Mozart’s keyboard sonatas on fortepiano for the Erato label.

Subsequent recordings appeared on BIS, Zig Zag Territoires, Alpha, and other imprints. On ECM he has documented works by John Cage and additional twentieth-century composers. As a concerto performer he has collaborated with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the London Philharmonic, and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the last of which joined him for a European tour featuring Rachmaninov’s complete set of piano concertos. In chamber settings he has partnered with violinist Christian Tetzlaff, viola da gamba player Wieland Kuijken, and tenor Peter Schreier. Recording activity has remained steady; by the early 2020s his discography exceeded fifty albums. In 2022 he released a collection of Valentin Silvestrov’s music on Erato and the album John Cage: Four Walls on Fuga Libera. That same year authorities detained him following an antiwar concert in Moscow.