Valentina Lisitsa

Valentina Lisitsa – Valentina Lisitsa Plays J.S.Bach (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · August 31, 2023 · Comments off

Valentina Evgenyevna Lisitsa (born March 25, 1970, Kiev, USSR) is a Ukrainian and American classical pianist. She became famous thanks to the channel on YouTube, which has a total of more than 250 million views.

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Hilary Hahn & Valentina Lisitsa – Ives: Four Violin Sonatas (2011/2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 10, 2023 · Comments off

When violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist Valentina Lisitsa began working together on Charles Ives’ violin sonatas, they commenced with the Third Sonata, which they took on tour in 2008. A second tour with the First, Second, and Fourth sonatas followed, and by 2010, the duo was ready to record all four works for Deutsche Grammophon. This cycle, complete on one CD, was an unexpected hit with recital audiences, and promises to win over new listeners who may at first be startled by Ives’ unorthodox approaches to form and content, yet will come to appreciate the mixture of nostalgic melodies, quirky rhythms, pungent and sweet harmonies, and colliding elements of Americana as surprisingly communicative and moving music. Hahn is quite serious in these performances, and perhaps too tightly focused on getting the details right to really break free, yet she is at her best in conveying wistful and melancholic emotions, so her introspective and careful playing has many fine moments. Lisitsa seems much more comfortable with making a big Ivesian noise, and her playing is as robust as Hahn’s is close-to-the-vest. The sound of these studio recordings is well-balanced and clear, though the tone is cool and the ambience is a little dry.

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Valentina Lisitsa – Chopin : Études – Schumann : Etudes symphoniques (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · November 13, 2022 · Comments off

Ukraine-to-North Carolina transplant Valentina Lisitsa has gained tremendous popularity by using YouTube (75 million views and counting) to market her music. No one should say that Lisitsa is merely an Internet phenomenon; more like her, taking the music directly to potential listeners through contemporary media, are sorely needed. The Internet has propelled her to a spot on the roster of the major Decca label, and she has played mostly mainstream Romantic repertory with a diversion, on her last release prior to this one, into the piano music of Michael Nyman. Here she takes on some real standards, the 24 Chopin Etudes, Op. 10 and Op. 25, and the technically even more perilous Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13, of Schumann, rendered with five extra variations in the middle excised by Schumann from the work and published posthumously (the work is essentially a set of variations that spills over its boundaries, something like the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120, of Beethoven). The Schumann fits Lisitsa’s strengths; she has formidable technique in passagework and is exceptionally skilled at bringing out the kind of inner counterpoint that the Symphonic Etudes are all about. The same strengths apply in the Chopin, where her left hand doesn’t flag in the workout it receives. According to the booklet notes, the Chopin etude performances of Alfred Cortot served Lisitsa as a reference point. Her performances don’t really sound like Cortot’s beyond a somewhat idiosyncratic quality; Cortot’s readings apparently caused Rachmaninov to laugh so hard that his false teeth fell out, and it’s hard to imagine that happening here. There’s nothing terribly poetic about Lisitsa’s performance, but there’s no denying that she’s on top of the music and that the physicality she has brought to it on the Internet is present. An interesting chapter in a unique contemporary pianistic career.

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Valentina Lisitsa – Valentina Lisitsa Plays Philip Glass (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 20, 2022 · Comments off

Cutting-edge pianist meets trendsetting composer: Valentina Lisitsa, whose artistry has bewitched audiences around the world, is releasing a double album selection of works for solo piano by Philip Glass, whose brand of minimalism has made him one of the most influential composers of our time. Valentina Lisitsa plays Philip Glass (Decca) is a stunning collection of Glass’s piano works, performed by Lisitsa with the grace and understanding of a true minimalist interpreter.

Music on the album includes tracks from Stephen Daldry’s BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated film The Hours, using the building blocks of minimalism to achieve a huge, inventive soundscape of musical richness and contrasts. The most substantial piece in the collection is the mesmerising 30-minute How Now, one of the first compositions written for the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1968. Also featured is Metamorphosis, a five-movement work of music for a theatrical adaptation of Kafka’s play of the same name. Other works featured include the iconic Mad Rush, which Glass performed at the first public appearance of the 14th Dalai Lama in New York City in 1981 and Mishima / Closing, part of the soundtrack to the 1985 film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.

Richly harmonic, this collection of definitive Glass is a deeply evocative listening experience, with revelatory performances from Lisitsa. She captures the essential beauty in Glass’s circular melodies and the drama he infuses into his minimalistic approach.

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Valentina Lisitsa – Tchaikovsky: The Complete Solo Piano Works (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 20, 2022 · Comments off

Unfairly neglected, Tchaikovsky’s piano music—which runs to approximately 11 hours’ worth—contains some gems, particularly such larger works as the two sonatas. Valentina Lisitsa is a terrific advocate, stepping up to the role of modern champion and shining brilliant light into this largely unexplored corner of the repertoire. Her technique is characteristically impressive—as in the opening Étude of Op. 40, which she launches with astonishing energy—and she draws a lovely sound from her beautifully recorded Bösendorfer piano. Tchaikovsky’s various piano arrangements, too, are a lot of fun, particularly the virtuoso Marche Slave. A set to dip into for rich rewards.

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Valentina Lisitsa – Scriabin: Nuances (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 20, 2022 · Comments off

The title Nuances is uncommunicative and has nothing to do with the ballet of that name assembled from Scriabin’s music by composer Alexander Nemtin. Instead, this recital by pianist and Internet marketing phenomenon Valentina Lisitsa represents a very specific kind of program, and it’s good to see her essay something like this rather than the mainstream repertory she has generally done thus far. What Lisitsa offers here is a recital that focuses on a composer’s youth, and the signs it may offer of that composer’s maturity. Much of the music here comes from Scriabin’s teenage years, and was never published. It’s heavily modeled on Chopin, but keep your ears pricked and you’ll hear all kinds of hints of the later Scriabin. It’s not a question of chromaticism, for Chopin at his most experimental outdid anything in all but the last few pieces here. Instead, Scriabin experiments with blocks of static texture, with decorations Chopin would not have used, with little unanswered harmonic questions. Sample the second of the Two Impromptus, Op. 14 (track 16), for a piece that’s right on the edge of what Scriabin would soon accomplish, some examples of which close out the program. Lisitsa doesn’t do anything spectacular here, but the originality of the concept is notable, and she conveys the just slightly inward atmosphere of the earlier pieces effectively. Decca’s Britten-Pears studio sound is very well suited to the project. ~~ Review by James Manheim

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Valentina Lisitsa – Love Story: Piano Themes From Cinema’s Golden Age (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 20, 2022 · Comments off

Valentina Lisitsa explores the glorious music of cinema’s unparalleled golden era. Valentina looks back to the cinematic glory days of the big screen, performing the finest piano concerto music composed especially for film.

A genre originally influenced by Rachmaninov’s popular piano concertos, these pieces are arresting original scores for piano and orchestra composed for movies of the 1940s and 1950s including Dangerous Moonlight, Stagefright, and The Apartment.

The album also brings us up-to-date with captivating music from Murder on the Orient Express, On Golden Pond and Pride & Prejudice.

This is a feast of original works by well-known luminaries such as Nino Rota, Richard Addinsell, Carl Davies, Richard Rodney-Bennett and Dimitri Shostakovich, set alongside scores from Charles Williams, Hubert Bath, Robert Farnon and others.

These pieces feature in films by legends such as Alfred Hitchcock, Leslie Arliss and Mark Rydell, accompanied by the great actors of the time such as Lauren Bacall, Katherine Hepburn, Jane Fonda, Albert Finney, Jack Lemmon, Ingrid Bergman and many more.

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Michael Nyman, Valentina Lisitsa – Chasing Pianos – The Piano Music Of Michael Nyman (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 20, 2022 · Comments off

Michael Nyman, Valentina Lisitsa – Chasing Pianos – The Piano Music Of Michael Nyman (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:53 minutes | 1,37 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

A coming together of two artists with enormous followings – Valentina Lisitsa, with her dazzling artistry and hundreds of thousands of followers on YouTube, and Michael Nyman, with his hugely popular film soundtracks. This release, in the year of Nyman’s 70th birthday, features tracks from his multi-award-winning score for the 1993 smash hit film The Piano.

Acclaimed for his music’s innovation, punchy simplicity and universal appeal, Nyman, during his career as a music critic, coined the term ‘minimalism’ for an emergent musical genre – one to which he would make extensive contributions in many of his early scores and inspire a vast global audience.

The disc is packed full with 77mins of material, full of irresistible energy. The album includes all ten solo piano transcriptions from The Piano, together on one album for the first time.

Composer: Michael Nyman
Performer: Valentina Lisitsa

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Valentina Lisitsa – Scriabin (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 19, 2022 · Comments off

Valentina Lisitsa - Scriabin (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

The Ukrainian pianist explores Scriabin’s intoxicating music.
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Valentina Lisitsa – 1908: Ravel Rachmaninoff (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 19, 2022 · Comments off

Valentina Lisitsa - 1908: Ravel Rachmaninoff (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

A newly signed Naïve artist, pianist Valentina Lisitsa explores the unveiled links between two of the most stunning works ever composed for the piano, and both of them in 1908: Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit and Rachmaninov’s piano sonata. Valentina Lisitsa is not only the first YouTube Star of classical music; more importantly, she is the first classical artist to have converted her internet success into a global concert career in the principal venues of Europe, the USA, South America and Asia. She posted her first video on the internet platform YouTube in 2007, a recording of Rachmaninoff’s Étude op.39/6. The number of views in-creased in staggering fashion; more videos followed. The foundation stone of a social network career unparalleled in the history of classical music was laid. Thanks to an unwavering dedication towards her audience and a personal approach to videos, her YouTube channel now records over 650,000 subscribers and 147 million views with an average of 75,000 views per day, whilst her Spotify account has over one million listeners monthly.
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Valentina Lisitsa – Chopin (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · September 17, 2022 · Comments off

Valentina Lisitsa - Chopin (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Newly-signed leading artist on naïve, Valentina Lisitsa offers a new performance of Chopin’s four Scherzos, her core repertoire since the beginning of her career. Those long, highly virtuosic and expressive works are milestones in Chopin’s output and were composed over a decade, between 1831 and 1842.
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