Label news: Valentina Lisitsa is back on the record
NewsYou may remember Valentina Lisitsa from the first decade of this century when she was the leading classical pianist on Youtube with millions of views, widely praised also for her Rachmaninov recordings on Decca.
Then Vladimir Putin occupied part of Ukraine and Lisitsa became a vociferous supporter of the occupation.
Orchestras and venues cancelled her concerts, friends and supporters shrank away and she has been off the record for several years.
Now, however, the Naive label has signed her for the complete piano works of Beethoven, Rachmaninov and more.
Here’s her announcement:
Naïve, a Believe label, is delighted to announce the start of a long-term collaboration with pianist Valentina Lisitsa and her production label “Queen of Rachmaninov”.
The partnership will present an intensive and ambitious series of projects, such as Rachmaninov’s complete solo piano works, Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas, and albums dedicated to Chopin, Scriabin, Schumann, Ravel and more, to be released over the next three years. To mark the beginning of this relationship, the first recording – Scriabin recital disc – will be released in digital format on 7th January 2022.
Valentina Lisitsa 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 Rachmaninov’s Étude Op.39/6. The number of views was unprecedented, and more videos followed. The foundation stone of a social media career unparalleled in the history of classical music had been laid. Thanks to an unwavering dedication towards her audience and a personal approach to videos, her YouTube channel now boasts 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.
This singular success has led Valentina Lisitsa to perform at some of the world’s most prestigious music venues, including a spectacular recital at the Royal Albert Hall in London, to an audience of 8,000 in June 2012 that sealed her international breakthrough.
Commenting on this new partnership with naïve, Valentina Lisitsa said: “Our label “QOR” is a result of years of experience in creating highly successful, top quality YouTube productions. Having this experience helped us record the best, truly world-class audio without compromising on artistic ideas. The “QOR” is an “audiophile” label drawing the inspiration from the Golden Age of pianism and following in footsteps of the musicians who inspired and influenced me – Hofmann, Rachmaninoff, Sofronitsky, Schnabel, Backhaus – while taking the advantage of the best recording equipment available today. This allows for my artistic freedom to be expressed on entirely new level. When we started the discussions with the naïve team, I felt that we were speaking the same language; their team showed the highest level of understanding towards our principles and long-term aims and brought focus and expertise to my projects without affecting my creative freedom. I am very excited about this new partnership with the naïve team!”
Pierre-Antoine Devic, Head of naïve classique, said: “Valentina has a very special status in the international music world. I have admired her trajectory since the beginning of her career. For naïve and for Believe, this new signing marks a major step in the rapid development of the classical music genre that we have been working on for several years. Valentina’s outstanding musical talent, her personality and her digital audience are fantastic assets we are eager to capitalize on and develop to serve her art and create the best environment for each of her recording projects. The last few months of intense conversation with Valentina and her general management have been so rich and interesting! We are thrilled to welcome you into the naïve family, Valentina!”
She pounds the piano unmercifully. In person she is kooky and demanding.
Sponsored by the sub-label Clostridium botulinum.
..and the label is called Naïve… you can’t make this stuff up.
I believe that this particular thread has set a SD record for the number of dad jokes.
Appallingly Naive.
Hopefully concert promoters will still not engage her no matter how god she is
Why not engage her? Just because she’s a woman, or because you don’t like her hairstyle or her choice of food?
“Why not engage her? Just because she’s a woman, or because you don’t like her hairstyle or her choice of food?”
Trying to be clever, comrade Гарри?
I’ve really enjoyed her current Beethoven sonata recordings. Solid and musically sincere without silly affectations.
Naive is the right name for this label!
Vociferous supporter of Russia’s claim to the Ukraine? Appropriate she will be recording for Naive..
Respect for women in music. But millions of views does not guarantee that this is a high quality instrumental performance and art.
What a shame that this musician is criticised because of her sex and her political point of view, if we applied the same principles in the arts we would be listening to no one….shame on those who so stupidly and ignorantly criticise Ms Lisitsa. Bravo to her for her courage in the present climate of hostility in the arts to young musicians who are not afraid to say what they want to…..
Well, she didn’t just have a “political point of view” – she’s had a cottage industry of incendiary twitter posts, some promoting violence. I seem to recall one in which she referred to Ukrainians as “dog feces” and “pigs,” and she’s retweeted grotesque photoshopped images of Ukrainian politicians on her social media.
If she’d changed her ways and deleted those old posts, that’s one thing, but a quick glance at her Twitter feed suggests that it’s more of the same.
I’ve enjoyed Lisitsa”s recordings in the past, but in light of these revelations, I can easily turn to other equally talented artists who do not openly support autocratic governments.
Gregor Tassie : I realise that my comment is probably stupid and ignorant, but I wonder if you would be so sympathetic towards Lisitsa if you were in that part of the Ukraine which has been annexed by Putin’s Russia ? If there is anyone who is stupid and ignorant, it is you
More than 95% of Crimean voters voted in favour of joining Russia in 2014. Just saying.
But even if that had not been the case, Lisitsa is entitled to her political opinions, and Tassie is quite right that we should refrain from vituperating artists on the basis thereof.
I like Ms Lisitsa because she is a fine musician and has developed a fine career without having to scrape together a career like most musicians have to do. Maybe you should forget about politics and concentrate on the arts.
Maybe VL should do the same.
Mr Tassie – I wouldn’t say your comment is stupid, but I can assuage your ignorance by citing the fact that the annexed part (reunification) of Ukraine (Little Russia) is Crimea which has the most Russians and was taken over without bloodshed. Why? Because there are no extreme Ukrainian Nationalists (pro-Bandera Western Galicians who still retain a whiff of antisemitism and Nazi sympathies) in that region. Many people in the East and South of Ukraine and in Crimea want peaceful and integral relations with Russia instead of the vile and virulent anti Russian rhetoric spewed by the Banderistas. Lisitsa is from Ukraine and knows this first hand. She is a very fine pianist with an opinion shared my many people who are not as courageous in facing the anti-free speech, cancel mob.
My comment was intended as a reply to Christopher Storey and not to Mr. Tassie. Sorry for the mixup.
So much humbug.
Well done Naive for taking up this interesting committed artist.
If we are not interested in politics, we should listen to this lady’s musicmaking and keep our political prejudices to ourselves.
Before throwing verbal custard pies in this lady’s direction, if we are interested in politics (which most of us are not) we could take a moment to question the gullibility of those endorsing the heavily sponsored anti-Russian warmongering coming from thousands of miles away.
Putin has placed a large military force (~100,000 men) equipped to invade at Ukraine’s border. This has been confirmed by various intelligence services and also amateurs who use public-access satellites.
Thanks for keeping the Neville Chamberlain banner flying. Your ignorance and moral cluelessness outbid each other in scope.
I had the pleasure of presenting she and her husband (Alexi Kuznetsof) in the Poulenc Two Piano Concerto, back in the late 90s at Alice Tully Hal. Both were first-rate musicians.
Never thought I would paraphrase our former president, but I prefer pianists who don’t support armed invasions.
In that case, I take it you will be boycotting all the American and British pianists who failed to take a stand against George and Sir Tony’s illegal invasion of Iraq, which resulted in over a million Iraqi civilians losing their lives?
You need to take logic course 101. Macrov’s statement was that he doesn’t want to patronize someone who supports armed invasions. Not publically protesting armed invasion is not the equivalent of supporting the said armed invasions. This is called the fallacy of equivocation. I wish people taught logic more instead of maths.
The reviews of her 2009 Rachmaninov concerto cycle (London SO/Francis) were mixed at best, not “widely praised”.
The reviews were better than that overall, going from mixed to very good. And on an informal level, amazon.com, which represents a mixture of music lovers and connoisseurs, has 80 percent 5 star reviews and 14 percent at 4 stars. Very good.
Comprehensive technique, outsize capacity for hard work, ability to dispatch truck loads of repertoire, a big public. There are some admittedly cynical observers but she is not to be written off by any means. I predict that she will carry the day. Dad jokes aside, Naive made a very shrewd choice on several levels.
Gergeiv and Matsuev both publicly supported the same invasion but I have not observed either of them being ‘cancelled’.
New record label, new face, new year! Maybe she thought people will forget she’s a bigot if she got a new face. I wonder if the surgery is part of the record deal?
The following assertion by Mr. Lebrecht is either 1) intentionally false, or 2) based on lack of basics of geography and history:
“Then Vladimir Putin occupied part of Ukraine and Lisitsa became a vociferous supporter of the occupation.”
The above statement is false because Vladimir Putin has not occupied Ukraine. Mr. Lebrecht pretends that a referendum in which 90+ percent of the residents of Crimea vote to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia in response to the US sponsored overthrow of the Ukrainian government is not an “occupation”. In fact I would bet that Mr. Lebrecht has never even been to Ukraine, never been to Russian, or even knows how to perform a correct translation from the languages used there.
You would bet wrong. The facts are the opposite of your statement.
WTF!
You work for the SPB troll factory?
Prigozin doesn’t keeps you busy enough, or you not into cooking or sending troops to stir up trouble in Africa?
oh btw what is 90% of nothing?
You forgot the other inhabitants of Crimea, like the opressed Tartars, where they had closed their TV , cos they told the truth,
or
all the other poor b…stards that get locked p for “terrorism” or “extremism” merely for showing how Stalin deported them all on one previous occasion?
And you come on here spouting lies and propaganda?