Grigory Sokolov ranks among the foremost Russian pianists to arise during the second half of the twentieth century. Restrictions imposed by Soviet officials both hindered and enhanced his trajectory: akin to earlier keyboard luminaries such as Sviatoslav Richter and Lazar Berman, he faced a temporary ban on Western appearances, yet his eventual debuts across Western Europe and the United States triggered a rapid ascent that placed him regularly in leading international venues. His reluctance to enter the recording studio has further shaped an enigmatic public image; the majority of his releases originate from concert performances and demonstrate exceptional command across a selective though largely traditional range that encompasses Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Rachmaninov alongside Byrd, Couperin, Rameau, and Froberger. He has appeared on Melodiya, Opus 111, Naïve, and Deutsche Grammophon, the last of which issued Purcell & Mozart in 2024.
Born in Leningrad on April 18, 1950, Sokolov began playing the piano at age five and commenced lessons with Liya Zelikhman two years afterward. While studying at the Leningrad Conservatory with Moisey Khalfin, the fifteen-year-old secured first prize at the Russian National Competition; even more strikingly, he captured the Tchaikovsky International Competition in 1966 at sixteen, remaining the youngest pianist ever awarded that distinction. Victory brought immediate prominence at home, with engagements alongside major orchestras and recitals in principal halls, although Soviet restrictions prevented appearances abroad until the late 1980s. From 1975 onward he also served as an instructor at the Leningrad Conservatory. His 1990 Paris debut created a sensation that extended to the United States, and that same year Opus 111 released his account of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, one of his earliest recordings on a Western imprint. Continued acclaim followed his November 2006 recitals in Paris and Düsseldorf, where identical programs of Bach, Beethoven, and Scriabin earned widespread praise.
Throughout much of his career Sokolov issued few studio documents, preferring instead to limit himself to selected projects for Opus 111 and Naïve during the 1990s and early 2000s. Extended periods yielded no new recordings at all, prompting labels to rely on concert captures, a choice rooted in his conviction that each performance is singular and cannot be replicated without loss. Among the resulting releases was a 2013 Salzburg Festival account of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in B flat major, Op. 106 (“Hammerklavier”). The landscape shifted in late 2014 when he signed with Deutsche Grammophon to authorize selected live performances for commercial release. The first such disc, devoted to Schubert and Beethoven, appeared in 2015; a 2017 set pairing Mozart and Rachmaninov concertos also contained a documentary directed by Nadia Zhdanova and settings of verse by his late wife Inna Sokolova. In 2020 he issued performances of Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart that included a DVD of his 2017 Turin recital. A further live recording made at Hungary’s Esterházy Palace followed on Deutsche Grammophon in 2022, succeeded by Purcell & Mozart drawn from two Spanish concerts in 2024.
