Lifschitz proves he´s Schubert´s match on ivories

In 1994, a recording of Bach´s "Goldberg" Variations made the Russian pianist Konstantin Lifschitz an international figure. That was long enough ago that it´s amazing to realise that he´s only 23 now-and he was 17 then.
When he made his American debut at the Newport Festival in 1996, this listener felt like an intruder reading someone´s innermost thoughts in a private diary-and Lifschitz was playing Chopin´s Op. 10 Etudes. That feeling of eavesdropping was even more profoundly pronounced Wednesday night when Lifschitz played a long and demanding Schubert program at the International Piano Festival at Williams College-both sets of Impromptus, the Moments Musicaux, and the Drei Klavierstuecke. The program reminded us, among other things, of how young Schubert was when he wrote some of his greatest music. He too was very old while still very young.
The program lasted 2 1/2 hours before the encores started, but it passed as in a single moment. I have heard only two other all-Schubert programs of this quality-a recital in Paris, 40 years ago, when Sviatoslav Richter played the last three sonatas, and the performance of "Winterreise" by mezzo-soprano Mitsuko Shirai and pianist Hartmut Hoell in Harvard´s Houghton Library a couple of years ago.
It is hard to think of a Russian pianist apart from Richter who excelled in Schubert-Evgeny Kissin certainly came to grief in the C-Minor Sonata in Symphony Hall a few years ago. Richter was implacable and austere; there was nothing friendly or ingratiating about his Schubert, and the pianist made the listener surrender to Schubert´s logic and sense of time unfolding.
Lifschitz hasn´t taken Richter, or anyone else, as a model; his response to all music is intensely personal, and in that, his playing Wednesday night was more akin to what Shirai and Hoell were after. Lifschitz recognizes everything extreme and disruptive about Schubert. These performances were full of radical emotional upheaval, and the most familiar pieces became unexpectedly fresh and painful.
Of course Lifschitz is an altogether exceptional pianist; whatever he sees or imagines in the music he can realize without obstacle at the piano. He never looks at the instrument or the keyboard, but instead turns his head to the side. He is not courting the audience, far from it; he is as likely to turn his head in the other direction and face the back wall. The reason for this, I think, is that he wants to bring his ear into more direct connection with the sound-and his ear is extraordinary, particularly in its sensitivity to details of dynamics, articulation, and, most of all, texture. He goes for broke all the time. This was evident from the opening gestures of the first Impromptu from Op. 90 - a ringing octave followed by as quiet a pianissimo as you have ever heard.
Let one piece serve as paradigm, the second of the Klavierstuecke, in which a gracious and harmless melody served Lifschitz as a kind of promenade between episodes of a profoundly disturbing psychodrama. The fifth of the Moments Musicaux was an explosion of violence; the third, usually played as a charmer, became something disquieting - a march of tin soldiers over a papier-mache hill, on the other side of which lay a real battlefield.
By the final subsiding into despair of the last Moment Musical, the listener was emotionally exhausted and ready either for silence or for something amusing like a waltz or one of Liszt´s "Soirees de Vienne." Instead Lifschitz offered Messiaen´s "Regard of the Prophets, Shepherds and Magi" from Messiaen´s "Vingt Regards sur l´Enfant Jesus," and very sinister and jangly it sounded. He followed this with another shriek of pain, this one a Chopin Nocturne.
Lifschitz was playing to the converted, an audience that understood what it was hearing-liking or disliking a genius such as Lifschitz is a pointless exercise; he is irrefutably there, like Callas or Glenn Gould, and you just have to deal with it.

ClassicsToday.com 8/28/01 Jed Distler on Palexa Schubert Recital CD

Artistic Quality 10/8 Sound Quality

On paper Schubert´s two books of Impromptus, six Moments Musicaux, and Three D. 946 Klavierstück might seem too much of a good thing programmed on a single recital, as KL did on July 12, 2000. Palexa´s live recording of that occasion, however proved me wrong as I sat for two hours, transfixed in front of my stereo system, thoroughly soaking in Schubert´s music and Lifschitz´s riveting, at times revelatory artistry. Indeed, this is the finest recording I´ve yet heard from this pianist. He approaches the Impromptus with little if any modifications from his basic, initial tempos, and he underscores the music´s boundless felicities through color, articulation, voice leading, plus hand and finger balance. By playing the final F minor Impromptu (the fourth of D.935) absolutely straight, Lifschitz clarifies twists and turns in the melodic line other pianists usually blur. In the B-flat major Theme and Variations Impromptu, each section flows from the previous one to effortless, improvisatory effect.
It´s also a joy to hear the hackneyed G-flat Impromptu beautifully shaped at a true alla breve rather than at a lumbering four beats to the bar. I also like Lifschitz´s brisk treatment of the D. 935 A-flat Impromptu, where he voices the hymn-like chordal writing in the outer sections as if his fingers were members of a sensitive string quartet. The Moments Musicaux prove equally gripping. You might prefer a lighter touch and more animation in the Third and Fourth selections, but No. 5´s dotted rhythms have a ferocious, forward sweep that literally took my breath away. Stripped of its latter-day monumental accoutrements and slow-motion shoes, No.6 is restored to its lyrical, songful state. Lifschitz´s controlled drama and long-lined breadth will surely hold your attention in the lengthy first two Klavierstücke, while No. 3´s lively cross-rhythmic effects simply sparkle under the pianist´s exceptional fingers.
Lifschitz offers an unusual encore in the form of the 16th movement from Messiaen´s Vingt Regards sur l´Enfant Jesus. He juggles the music´s polytextural webs with pinpoint precision and a wide array of colors at his beck and call. Certainly this brilliant performance bodes well for a complete Vingt Regards from Lifschitz. Maybe there´ll be one, if this Schubert recital sells. Buy it while you can.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung January 8, 2001

Albrecht Dümling Berlin Konzerthaus Große Saal

Tremendous Development Konstantin Lifschitz Fires the Audience Playing Beethoven with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra

He is a phenomenon. Konstantin Lifschitz apparently began his pianistic career at seventeen with a work to which others come only at a mature age: Bach´s Goldberg Variations. The recording received a Grammy Nomination Award and was praised as the most convincing Bach interpretation since Glenn Gould. Meanwhile, after he celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday in December, he has taken another leap in his development. He says that he listens to his "old" CD recordings only with "cold horror." His frighteningly broad repertoire includes not only most of the concertos by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Shostakovich, but also the rarely performed piano concerto by Arnold Schönberg and "Reveil des Oiseaux" by Olivier Messiaen. Although Lifschitz already played in concert with the Philharmonic Orchestras of St. Petersburg and New York and with the Chicago Symphony, the small hall at the Konzerthaus was only half full when he performed a Scriabin/Bach program there. But at his most recent appearance with the BSO the large hall was full, down to the last standing place. This too, is a tremendous development.
Slowly and pensively, KL stepped to the podium together with the conductor, Eliahu Inbal. He walked slightly stooped and took his place at the piano with the same posture...Only after having waited for complete silence, he began the meditative solo of the Beethoven Concerto in G Major, The chamber-music partner of Gidon Kremer and Lynn Harrel, among others, perfectly realized the almost chamber music-like structure of this composition, the constant exchange between piano and orchestra. His touch elicited ticking tone repetitions and transparent, glass-clear runs of thirds from the Steinway Grand, as well as soft legato arches. When the series of thirds returned, modulated to different keys, their tone was changed, darkened. Truly unprecedented was the long cadence (by Beethoven) with its imitative crossovers and surprising harmonic expressions, which Lifschitz carved out intensively, hardly ever looking at the keyboard even during the virtuoso passages. In the middle movement, the harsh unisono passages of the orchestra were contrasted by the quiet "song" of the piano, which tamed the violence the way Orpheus tamed the furies in the Greek myth.
This extraordinary andante ended with a tremendously extended falling second, in which the young pianist, as convincingly as Brendel, conveyed the importance of every single note to both the orchestra and the audience. His earnest concentration fits the understatement of the G Major Concerto, which foregoes all external embellishments. When the applause swelled after the rondo and the artist continued to be called back to the podium, many were probably hoping that he would crown his successful first appearance with a number of encores. But here, too, KL forewent a virtuoso´s vanity and allowed the Beethoven Concerto to continue its effect alone-truly a phenomenon...

The daily Gazette April 4, 2002 By Bill Rice Gazette Reporter

Lifschitz impressive throughout Union College chapel performance

Add KL´s name to the list of stellar pianists who have performed in the Union College Concert Series over the years...
Lifschitz opened the concert with a spellbinding performance of Bach´s Chaconne in a remarkable arrangement for left hand alone by Brahms.
There were times indeed, when one had to look twice to make sure his right hand was not involved in the music making.
Program notes pointed out that Schumann´s "Kreisleriana" is an elaborate self-portrait that takes its title and nature from E.T.A. Hoffmann´s eccentric musician, "Johannes Kreisler."
It was written during, and it reflects, an unhappy time in Schumann´s life when Clara Wieck´s father was making life difficult for them.
That being said, this is a technically demanding piece full of emotional extremes.
The work is remarkable and unique in the way it changes quickly from one mood to another, often very abruptly, but often very subtlely.
Lifschitz waxed rhapsodic in the brilliant opening passages, where his playing was both intense and passionate.
As the work progressed his performance alternated between lightning fast and thoughtful and expressive as the music demanded.
Agitated measures came in stormy clusters and the pianist came close to casting a spell in some of the work´s mysterious sounding measures.
His playing was particularly stormy in the next to last section, and light and scampering in the last, a Mendelssohn-like scherzo.
Bach´s "Musical Offering" is a series of short compositions based on a theme proposed to the composer by Frederick the Great of Prussia.
In complex contrapuntal music as this, a large part of the battle is balancing the notes so the treatment of the theme can be followed with interest.
Lifschitz has the ability to make listening to the intricacies of Bach´s music fun rather than tedious, and he does it ever so effortlessly.
The evenness and smoothness of his playing and his tonal control of the instrument were all impressive throughout.

The Straits Times: Monday, July 3, 2000 Victoria Concert Hall Singapore By Lionel Choi

Genius sounds better in person Rare and treasurable event from Lifschitz

By all counts a remarkable polymath, but undeniably quirky, Lifschitz sports a bizarre brand of pianism that lives and breathes in a world of its own, cloistered in an ivory tower, the kind of thing that either does not register with audiences or, on that exceptionally good day, leaves them deeply enchanted.
How much richer we are now, therefore, since Friday´s recital turned out to be a rare and treasurable occasion from start to finish.
One would still expect his approach to the Bach items to divide the audience, though: The Sinfonias played in order of complexity rather than of key as somewhat in the way Bach first wrote them in Wilhelm Friedemann´s Clavierbuchlein, were as fascinating for his colossal insight and familiarity with the polyphonic style as they were intensely personal.
Yet, against the sheer creative vitality of the performances, the astonishing clarity of articulation, and the sense of being led on revelatory journeys through musical space, the idiosyncrasies sounded so naturally and spontaneously conceived as to be inseparable from the overall plan.
As was even clearer in the F major English Suite, Lifschitz played Bach as if it ran in his blood - intelligent, perceptive and intuitive - a far cry from the kind of modern-day academic arrow-pointing to this clever counter-subject and that oh-so-logical key-change and so on.
The enigmatic language of Scriabin and Messiaen found even greater empathy in him.
Scriabin was conveyed with a kind of swimmy headiness, sometimes ravishing in the subtle nuances of colour and rhythm, at other times swirling with delirious abandon, the entire flow sounding so irresistibly incandescent as to disarm criticism of some choppiness and to render mental comparisons with other hallowed Scriabin players odious and unnecessary.
The same could be said of the four representative movements from Messiaen´s Catholic-inspired cycle, Vingt Regards Sur L´Enfant Jesus.
The Almighty deserved nothing less than hypnotic colouring for His opening theme, just as the rambunctious tam-tam celebrations of the Holy Birth had to be genuinely exhilarating.
In the rapt intensity of the Kiss Of The Child Jesus one was reminded that music-making is really something that comes from being genuinely inspired.
Presented in this rarefied way, music can make our hearts pound; our senses are teased, our deepest emotions engaged in a most profound way.
Ah, is this not why we love music so very much?

The Independent 15 May 1998, Wigmore Hall, London By Adrian Jack

This pianist is extraordinary...
... a range of feeling from passion to delicacy. The first of Schubert's four Impromptus, D899, was purposeful, with a sweeping sense of shape, minus the fussy rhythmic bulges that many pianists apply like digs in the ribs. Most of the expression in the melodious G Flat Major Impromtu was achieved through subtle variations of volume and balance, with a top line that was simple and sincere. The last was mellifluous and melting, without any prettification, its middle second section kept on the move, expressive but not squeezed for effect.
Nor, in the whirlwind of hell depicted in Liszt's Dante Sonata, did Lifschitz find any call for melodramatic caricature. This was serious business, done swift and straight... in the slow second theme, Lifschitz placed notes with an exact sense of weight and timing. His range of sympathy extends far and wide, too, as he showed in his first encore, a lilting sonata by Scarlatti, which was followed by a deliciously evanescent performance of the Scherzo from Chopin's B minor Sonata.

The New York Times March 25, 2003 By Allan Kozin NYPO under M.Rostropovich

Age's Artistry on the Podium, Youth's Poise at the Piano

... Konstantin Lifschitz, a Russian in his mid-20's, made his Philharmonic debut with a finely calibrated, thoughtful account of the Prokofiev. The most immediately striking aspects of Mr. Lifschitz's playing were a transparency that honored the work's neo-Classical undercurrents, as well as the poise and assurance that allowed him to tap the music's power without overt displays of muscularity.

Newsday.com March 24, 2003 By Justin Davidson NYPO under M.Rostropovich

... the young russian phenomenon Konstantin Lifschitz, who wore his colossal technique lightly and captured the brittle dazzle of Prokofiev's style. It will be fascinating to hear him in other repertoire.

Andante March 21, 2003 By Jason Royal

The New York Philharmonic Celebrates Slava

... for others it can be an outward sign of his hyperaware, intellectual musicianship. The tempos in all three movements were slower than expected: Lifschitz held some of the motoric passages in the first movement, for instance, a degree or two below maximum intensity - until the very end of the movement, when he unleashed the anticipated energy with satisfying conclusiveness. And because of the slower tempos, many often overlooked details took on a special glow, such as the glittering arpeggios at the end of the first movement development and the magical transition between the fourth and fifth variations in the second movement. ... Every note Lifschitz played seemed to be deeply considered.

Boston Globe Feb 13 1997 By Richard Dyer London debut recital live recording

... Lifschitz, whose American debut at a Newport Festival recital was musically and emotionally unforgettable: He made Chopin's Op. 10 Etudes sound like pages from a diary of the soul. Lifschitz made his London debut a little earlier, in December 1995, when he was still 18, and that too was an outstanding occasion, now documented on a Denon CD. There are six gorgeously played Preludes from Rachmaninoff's Op. 32 (he played the whole set at the concert, but there was only room for six on the CD) and a valiant but not always convincing attempt to transcribe Couperin's "Huitieme Ordre" to piano from the harpsichord original. However, Lifschitz plays pieces like "Gavotte" and the final "La Morinete" with a fabulous spring of rhythm and lightness of touch. But the glory of the CD is the Brahms, the rarely played "Variations on a Hungarian Song" and, especially, the "Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 21, No. 1." The music, dedicated to Clara Schumann, is full of intimate, passionate and exalted feelings Brahms could convey in no other way, and Lifschitz utterly spellbinding playing is a revelation of the inner life of the instrument and of the music. This is playing that penetrates the innermost secrets of the heart and mind.

Den Haag - 23/4/97 Concert with Y.Temirkanov in Rotterdam

The contribution of ... KL was a miracle of self-expression...with his richly developed technique - such a beautiful fortissimo, never sounding forced - Lifschitz gave an interpretation of Rachmaninov´s capricious Rhapsody that highlighted its intensity rather than its joyfulness. One can argue about the latter, but the manner in which he performed made it clear that Lifschitz, young as he is, knows exactly what he wants.

Journal de Geneve - Yves Allaz 30/4/97

...This pianist technically absolutely accomplished (what a touch!) held back, never pushed himself in to the foreground, and played his passages in delightful harmony with the orchestra yet without relinquishing his own creative vision. It was an exemplary perfromance of this not exactly unproblematic piece (Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1). The Chopin whet the appetite for more. We look forward to the first Zurich recital of this highly talented young pianist even if in the world scene he has already long since been discovered.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra By Albert H. Cohen Correspondent Oct 30 2001

...De Falla´s great score of "Nights in the Gardens of Spain" is an impressionistic one, filled with the rhythms, cadences modes and melodic turns of Andalusian popular music. Yet it is not folk music in any way, but rather quite symphonic. It features piano, here performed by KL, whose name you should memorize.
Although this score doesn´t demand anything like what a typical concerto would, it has enough to allow one to hear what a gifted artist this 25-year-old Russian is. He has the kind of fluid technique that makes every passage sound easy, even when he is playing with unorthodox fingerings. Lifschitz is a true talent who I would love to hear him in a work that demanded all the horse-power he has in his fingers...

Star-Ledger Oct 27 2001 By Willa J. Conrad Star-Ledger Staff

De Falla´s "Nights in the Gardens" was the best thing on the program. Not quite a concerto, not quite an ensemble piece, it offered only glimpses of pianist Lifschitz´s bell-like tonal quality, powerful grip on the keyboard and ability to spin a transparent, diaphanous sound. Here Valdés and orchestra seemed to relax in their hold on each other, offering rounder, more luxurious phrases and the interaction with Lifschitz, who was making his NJSO debut, yielded some of the more memorable moments of the evening.

National Business Review New Zealand August 11, 2000 Reviewed
by John Daly-Peoples

...Visiting Russian pianist KL received thunderous applause for his performance of Beethoven´s Piano Concerto No 3. ...
He displayed a technical virtuosity rarely seen here. His hands danced like butterflies over the keys with a deftness and lightness that disguised a remarkable power and concentration. We will need to see more of Lifschitz...

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Auckland Town Hall Heath Lees August 7, 2000

...Another advantage lies in being able to compare the same performer in different repertoire at close quarters. In the case of pianist KL, this yielded enormous satisfaction since his approach to the pair of works he had brought with him was so different yet so enjoyable.
Friday´s Beethoven Concerto - the C minor, number three - was crisp and delicate, with Lifschitz producing a springy, intimate tone from the Steinway Grand that often gave the impression of a fortepiano, but took on a ravishing, pearly quality in the cantabile moments. All the showy parts were properly restricted to cadenzas, and the reflective tempo for the finale gave elegance and poise to a movement that is usually powered through regardless.
In Saturday´s programme, the concerto was again in C minor, but by a Romantic Rachmaninov this time. Lifschitz´ playing seemed to have been completely re-cast, the buoyant Beethoven sound giving way to a darker, more languorous tone that sang clearly on top, but paid perfect attention to the rippling details underneath. Eager not to rush the music, Lifschitz became slow in the middle movement...

Jersey Arts Center Royal Bank of Scotland piano series April 24, 1999
By Alison Stewart

Unfolding a magnificent finale

THE Royal Bank of Scotland piano series finished in a blaze of glory on Friday as KL...received rapturous applause for a performance that few found they could describe adequately as they left the Arts Centre.
The centrepiece of the recital was J S Bach´s towering Goldberg Variations, described in the programme as "one of the glories of Western music". Because this piece, played with all its repeats, lasts over 70 minutes, Lifschitz altered his published programme, beginning with three preludes from a set of eight by Olivier Messiaen.
These early piano pieces by the French composer, best known for his monumental religious music and use of birdsong, were fascinating for their exploration of the sounds of the piano.
The pianist captured admirably a whole array of subtly interwoven patterns and contrasts of texture, notably in the second prelude, where a choraic-like chant was surmounted by a shimmering web of mystical sound.
Like Messiaen, J S Bach was a celebrated organist, writing masterpieces for this instrument. But he also wrote works for that most intimate medium, the solo keyboard, and it is one of the most intimate of these, a short piece written for his wife, Anna Magdalene, which provides the theme for his remarkable Goldberg variations.
From the beginning this was a most compelling performance. Lifschitz enunciated the theme with the utmost clarity, its simple grace beautifully embellished by ornaments that were impeccably placed and matched to each other. He played looking away from the keyboard towards the back screen, as if accompanying a silent film, and indeed it seemed that the intricate design of the whole 30 variations was unfolding before his eyes.
The range of styles encompassed by these variations amounts to a summary of baroque musical language, and Lifschitz was master of them all, his playing characterised by clarity and balance. Every third variation is in the form of a canon, which he delivered with sort of lucid reasonableness that let us feel smart for following with ease! The later variations built to an awesome, cathedral-like expansiveness, conveying the majestic conception of the whole design, before the final reprise of the original theme offered the sense of completion and total satisfaction that forbade the audience to make a sound until the pianist had relinquished his hold on the vision.
Two marvellous encores helped to defuse the tension and round off a magnigicent recital.

The Washington Post Monday, October 8, 2001 Ronald Broun

KL: Playing With Fire

Thin, distracted and very, very intense, pianist KL gazed left, away from the audience, and listened. He was playing, of all things, late-Renaissance organ and harpsichord pieces by Girolamo Frescobaldi. As he embellished Frescobaldi´s oblique lines and modal ruminations, he softened the textures with keystrokes other pianists might reserve for much later music; he added sophisticated pedaling, too-sometimes quite a lot. The music responded, poked and prodded from its 17th-century origins into living tissue.
Next, Lifschitz jumped 350 years into the 1950s with five pieces from Gyorgy Ligeti´s "Musica Ricercata." Lifschitz promulgated their highly individuated polyphony and slippery meter changes with fabulous touch. Odd voicings shattered the music´s thriving surfaces into bizarre asymmetries eerily reminiscent of the Frescobaldi we had just heard.
Lifschitz fired three Chopin impromptus with swirling polyphonic undercurrents that obliterated bar lines and disturbed Chopin´s familiar melodies into new but altogether natural profiles. Fast-running sixteenth notes were beautifully bound but surged pistonlike into musical fabric, which seemed minutely destabilised and charged with danger. At deliberate tempos fraught with information, Lifschitz played right through the climaxes in Chopin´s Second Sonata-no swooning, italicizing or clangor-but pulled all four movements magnificently together into a unified, tightly focused panorama of Chopin´s unique vision.
This astonishing recital was presented Saturday afternoon at the Kennedy Center´s Terrace Theatre by the Washington Performing Arts Society. Lifschitz donated his fee to a charity benefiting those killed or injured in last month´s terrorist attacks.

The San Francisco Chronicle January 19, 2002
By Joshua Kosman Chronicle Music Critic

Concerts with the SFSymphony under Air R.Norrington

...Lifschitz...made a fascinating Symphony debut during the evening´s first half, a beguiling mixture of diffidence and deep seriousness.
In the "Totentanz," with its bravura variations on the "Dies Irae" plainchant, Lifschitz seemed determined to underplay even the most fiendish keyboard passages -- as though the difficulties in Liszt´s virtuoso writing were hardly worth breaking a sweat over. This had the effect of drawing a listener even closer in, and the results -- not only in the finger-busting fireworks displays but in the more inward, lyrical passages as well -- were magnificent...He then added an encore, the piano solo "Funérailles" in an eloquent and probing rendition.

Contra Costa Times San Francisco January 19, 2002
By Georgia Rowe Times Correspondent

...The evening´s other soloist was just as impressive. Lifschitz, who makes his S.F.Symphony debut on this program, brought formidable technique and a great deal of poetic temperament to Liszt´s "Totentanz" (Dance of Death). Its variations - which are based on "Dies Irae," the 13th-century Latin chant outlining the Last Judgment - range from profoundly introspective to fiercely flamboyant. Norrington seemed to relish each emotional shift, and Lifschitz plumbed the depths with focused intensity.
The pianist also found a deep well of feeling in "Funerailles," the brief yet potent solo work Liszt composed shortly after the death of Chopin. It was a transcendent performance, and one of the best things about it was watching Norrington, seated in a chair behind the violins, listening with rapt attention to this very gifted young artist.

San Francisco Classical Voice Michelle Dulak 2002

A star who plays chamber music

The Schumann Piano Quintet after intermission was stronger, largely because the ostensible star, the young pianist KL, obstinately behaved like a chamber musician rather than like a pianistic lion. He was eloquent and nimble, but absolutely refused to make a spectacle of himself...

The Boston Globe ~Monday, February 14, 2000
B y Richard Dyer Globe Staff

Lifschitz gives dignified performance under Bolle

...He has a formidable pianistic gift by nature - he was a great prodigy as a child and made a searching recording of Bach's "Goldberg" Variations at 17; he has also been diligent and exploratory, playing an unusual breadth of repertory. And his gifts are at the service of a remarkable, questioning, and original musical mind.
Lifschitz's performance of the familiar Rachmaninoff Concerto was very slow ...The tempos allowed him to bring out many details of voicing and counterpoint that usually disappear in the whirlwind. It was a very dignified performance, too, one that let the emotions take care of themselves - or let them emerge from purely musical complications and climaxes. There was very little in the way of conventional pianistic finesse - Lifschitz didn't seem interested in beautiful tone merely for the sake of beautiful tone. Still, to clarify the inner workings of the music to this extent was a very considerable pianistic feat. Bolle and the orchestra aided and abetted so that Lifschitz could give the performance he wanted to, and the audience responded to its authenticity. An encore did bring out the fancy piano playing, a movement from Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons" that displayed both melancholy colors and touches and immaculate counterpoint...

The Boston Globe~1/30/2001
By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff

...Lifschitz's Brahms was altogether remarkable. While his colleagues and countrymen Arcadi Volodos and Evgeny Kissin use music to play the piano, Lifschitz uses the piano to play music. He obviously sees Brahms as a great polyphonic composer, in the tradition of Bach, and so what other pianists unleash as undifferentiated swirls of sound, Lifschitz presents as complexes of motivic detail. He used subtler pedaling in this piece (Brahms's Second Piano Concerto) than any pianist I have ever heard, and subtler voicings came from his fingers; none of these proclaimed "What a fabulous pianist am I," but instead said, "Listen to what a wonderful thing Brahms has done here." Lifschitz was listening to the orchestra, and Bolle and the players were listening to him; this was large-scale chamber music of the highest quality...Lifschitz's encore, a two-voiced dance from a Bach English Suite, only emphasized the message he had already delivered about Brahms.

The Gazette Montreal Ilse Zadrozny Special to the Gazette

Ladies love Lifschitz

KL is now in his nid-20s. He is young, but a fully mature artist. Yet the excitement and imagination that characterized his interpretations yesterday afternoon at Pollack Hall displayed the freshness and elan of which only a young man is capable.
As the guest of the Ladies' Morning Musical Club, Lifschitz performed a well-contrasted program of music: the four Brahms Ballades Op. 10, three pieces by Bohuslav Martinu, plus Schubert's A-Major Sonata, D.959.
From the dark opening and the implied battle of the first Ballade, subtitled Edward, Lifschitz's handling of these Brahms pieces was impressive, not only because of the voluminous sonorities the pianist drew from the concert grand, but even more so for his many nuances in tone and dynamic shadings. With very expressive fingers he knew how to lift a melody out of busy textures. His musical feelings were full of energy, yet at no time lacked subtlety...
Martinu' s Pastorale of 1945 spoke lirically in a strictly tonal idiom. A more harmonic language emerged in the Intermezzo, while the tonal alienation in the Fantasie of 1940 was starkly pronounced.
Lifschitz played this music most attractively. His lightning-fast fingers in the forbiddingly difficult Fantasie were absolutely stunning. He demonstrated superb pianistic technique. Yet even at that, his music making never failed to be expressive.
However, the emptional scope with which he interpreted the Schubert Sonata was to me the recital's most moving experience.
The compelling excitement of the first movement lay in the pianist's very incisive attacks, contrasting the liquid flow of the many rapid runs.
But the pianist brought a myriad of striking effects to the sonata.
The Andantino's sad and depressed mood was heartrending, its outbreak of wild rage devastating, and its final mood of resignation deeply touching. Stark outbursts interrupted the Scherzo's sweet rippling.
Lifschitz rendered the Rondo finale's untroubled and lovable melody so beautifully, it made my scalp tingle, yet followed it up with a storm interlude of overwhelming violence.
Over-all, this was a highly dramatic Schubert interpretation, which drew wild applause and calls of "Bravo!"

La Presse Montreal cyberpresse.ca Monday, November 19, 2001 Claude Gingras
Sunday afternoon, Pollack Hall at McGill University.
Hosted by: Ladies' Morning Musical Club.

KL, Creator of Atmosphere

At the LMMC, in his Montreal recital, KL made an extremely strong and somewhat disturbing impression-as may be acheived only by the most brilliant performers-which lasted the duration of the recital, setting off a veritable marathon of encores, and beyond.

With L, for those who know him as well as for those hearing him for the first time, what is surprising is not so much the caliber of the pianist as that of the performer.
It is not uncommon these days to meet young pianists with comprehensive technical qualifications. Lifschitz, at the age 24, is no exception. However, he has already mastered these qualities and taken them to a higher level. From his exceptionally clear articulation, to his very powerful technique that is at the same time very elegant, everything you could wish for is there, magnified in a tone that remains always thoughtful and beautiful.
Many pianists are content with that and hold an important place in the musical world. Lifschitz goes farther, much farther. That someone who is only 24 years old could reach the summits we all experienced last Sunday afternoon is, I think, even more surprising, and more disturbing, in the phenomenon we observed, because well before the age of thirty, he has shown the maturity of some performers that have their entire career behind them.
The four Brahms Ballads already reveal the immediate link between thought and sound that bursts forth from the fingertips. This power that courses through the concert hall actually seems to have common origin: this is Brahms not in his later years, but in his youth - close to the age of the performer himself!...The pianist has just expressed something significant and provided us with some insight...
One of the most famous works by Schubert follows the intermission: the Sonata D. 959...Lifschitz... performs somewhat poorly: in the first movement, which he accompanies with a repeat of four pages, the same short passage of descending arpeggios, oddly enough, throws him off three times in a row.
But these are meaningless compared to the incredible spiritual magnitude that he acheives. As with Brahms, he immediately establishes an atmosphere throughout the nearly full concert hall: an atmosphere that he maintains until the end. In the Andantino, around which the entire sonata revolves, the emphasis on the first beat sounds like a knell, and the middle part, which is disturbing, becomes a nightmare. The Scherzo itself prolongs this mood. During the very long finale, full stops on the organ and entire measures of silence are observed, as they rarely are, with the result that this feels like a nearly new passage we are discovering.
Four encores followed: Troika by Tchaikovsky, Ballad op. 118 no. 3 by Brahms, Gazouillement by Couperin (with realistic harpsichord effect on the piano) and the second prelude by Gershwin-




HippoPress.com By Jeff Rapsis August 30, 2001

Mozart's spirit shows through at Monadnock Music concert

...The concert opened with No 21 in C, one of the all-time Mozart greats. Lifschitz brought a playful touch to this treasure chest of jaunty melodies and lively passages. Though the pianist never went beyond the limits of classical restraint in which Mozart wrote, the performance was a tribute to the high-spirited side of the composer's personality.
A highlight was Lifschitz's rendition of the concerto's quicksilver finale, included an amazing end-of-movement cadenza (by L.) that was nearly laugh-out-loud comical. Hearing Lifschitz play Mozart, concertgoers got a sense of the playful nature that shows through so clearly in many of the composer's letters.
A similar approach prevailed in Concerto No. 27 in B flat, the last the composer wrote. Throughout the work, L. evoked the warm, intimate spirit that permeates the music, somehow taming the potentially overwhelming sonorities of the gigantic grand piano on hand for the concert.

Florida Sun-Sentinel 9 FEBRUARY 1998 Tim Smith

Piano festival introduces a rare artistry to the region

The Miami Festival of Discovery lived up to its billing.....having made exceptional recordings, hearing Mr Lifschitz in person provided more startling affirmation that he ranks among the most prodigiously figured keyboard artists on the scene today.
He made by far the most astonishing impression, not just because of his sterling technique, but because of a quality in his playing that can only be called spiritual. Maybe once in generation does a pianist emerge who gets as far into the soul of a composition as this young man does......he offered a supremely sensitive account of Schubert's Sonata, Op 122, spinning out phrases with exquisite tonal colouring. The quirky world of Beethoven's Bagatelles, Op 119, which contain some of the same surprises as his late sonatas, was brilliantly explored. The pieces were given terrific spontaneity and nuance by L. He also brought plenty of force, but even more poetry, to a group of Rachmaninov Preludes, and delivered Chopin's Sonata No 3 with arresting freshness, passion and prismatic brilliance (the Scherzo quite literally sparkled).
Four encores revealed still more of the pianist's musical depth, especially an arresting rapturously phrased transcription (presumably his own) of Berlioz's Le spectre de la rose. L i f s c h i t z i s a m a r v e l. We would be fortunate indeed to have him back again soon.

Calendar /The Boston Globe/November 2, 2000 Richard Dyer

New on disc /Constantin Lifschitz/ Denon

In 1996 CL played Chopin's Etudes in a recital at the Newport Festival that was one of the most extraordinary things this listener has ever heard; one felt one was prying into the intimate diaries of both Chopin and Lifschitz. A distinguished senior statesman pianist in the audience murmured, "This kid is a genius." Lifschitz recorded the etudes in February 1997, but the CD has only recently appeared. The performances are everything one had remembered and more - these are supremely poetic performances of pieces too often played for display. Often Lifschitz seizes on the note or two around which the finger patterns pivot and change; he is attracted to every element of irregularity in the music. He brings a wonderful sense of character to each etude: the The E-flat Minor Etude, No. 6, is a miracle of atmosphere, touch, color and polyphony, for example. Lifschitz opens the CD with a lively and sensitive performance of Schumann's "Abegg" Variations, and completes the Chopin with the wonderful Mazurkas (Op. 59), played as nostalgic reflections on a distant and vanishing world, and with the Third Impromptu, which is liquid gold in his hand. This record is a marvel.