Lignes Claires by Julien Libeer

Maurice Ravel, Dinu Lipatti

Julien Libeer

Lignes Claires

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Evil Penguin
UPC: 0608917720624
Catnr: EPRC 0020
Release date: 12 February 2016
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Label
Evil Penguin

UPC
0608917720624

Catalogue number
EPRC 0020

Release date
12 February 2016

""Making music reaches further than a sympathic culture perception.""

Painist, 01-11-2016

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

Up to now, piano prodigy Julien Libeer (°1987) has – quite surprisingly – been able to steer clear of the international spotlights, in spite of being widely recognized as one of the world’s most astonishing talents. In 2010, at the tender age of 22, he was nominated “Young musician of the year” by the Belgian music press; in 2008 he had already received the prestigious Juventus Award –previously awarded to later icons like Piotr Anderszewski and Emmanuel Pahud. Since then, he has performed on stages like the Palau de la Musica Catalana (Barcelona), Barbican Hall (London), and the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), often in series typically reserved for more “weathered” virtuosi.
According to Maria João Pires, whose patronage and partnership he has enjoyed since 2012, “Julien Libeer is the complete musician who fuses true understanding, a solid intellectual approach, and an infallible instinct for the impalpable.”
It is characteristic for his belief that “good exists, but good enough does not” that Julien Libeer has waited until his 28th to issue his first solo recording. On his upcoming debut album entitled Lignes Claires, Libeer lays bare the luminous lines in the music of his favourite composers, exploring the reticent sensibility in Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin and Valses nobles et sentimentales, and the haunting hypnotism and delicate understatement in the Nocturne and Sonatine by the Romanian piano virtuoso Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), whose output as a composer has been unjustly eclipsed by his aura as a performing genius.

"Ein Vollblutmusiker, der in sich das wahre Wissen über die Kompositionen in sich birgt, mit einem soliden, intellektuellen Verständnis und einem unfehlbaren Instinkt für das nicht Greifbare." Maria João Pires

Artist(s)

Julien Libeer (piano)

“The complete musician, who unites, at any musical moment, a true understanding of the piece, a solid intellectual approach and an infallible instinct for the impalpable.” - Maria João Pires Born in 1987 near Brussels, Belgium, Julien Libeer’s earliest musical memory was the famous documentary on the recording of West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein. The piano, which he took up at age six, quickly became the faithful companion for expressing a love of music that, until today, thrives as much on opera, orchestra and chamber music as on the piano repertoire.
For five decisive years, French-Polish pedagogue Jean Fassina was the patient, demanding, wise teacher that any aspiring musician should have the chance to encounter. This experience was followed by the equally intense collaboration with Maria João Pires at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, whose advice and support strongly infl uenced Julien Libeer’s views over the last years, and continue to do so.
Julien Libeer has been a regular guest of Flagey and the Palais des Beaux- Arts in Brussels, the Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), the Juventus Festival and the Abu Dhabi Music Festival. A member of Maria Joao Pires’ Partitura project, he has recently made his debut in such venues as the London Barbican Hall, the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, Barcelona’s Palau de la Musica and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Upcoming invitations include a Japan tour and performances at the Miami International Piano Festival, among others. An accomplished chamber musician, he performs with Lorenzo Gatto, Camille Thomas, Augustin Dumay, Maria João Pires, Frank Braley, to name just a few.
Julien Libeer has studied piano with Daniel Blumenthal (Royal Conservatory of Brussels), Jean Fassina (Paris), and is an associate artist of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, where he also specialized in chamber music with the members of the Artemis Quartet. Furthermore, he has received the advice of Dmitry Bashkirov, Alfred Brendel, Abdel Rahman El Bacha and Gerhard Schulz (Alban Berg Quartet).
He has received the Juventus prize (most promising young European soloist) in 2008, and was elected Young Musician of the Year by the Belgian Music Press Association in 2010. The Klara award 2013 was attributed to him by the audience of the national radio for classical music.
Much appreciated for his eloquence, Julien Libeer is a regular guest of media at home and abroad. His work has been subject of a TV documentary (“Technique doesn’t exist”, 2013), also available on YouTube.
Based in Brussels, he spends most of his free time reading, swimming or enjoying a good series, and is actively engaged in a number of social projects, all rooted in the idea that music, far beyond its esthetic value, can be a force of change for anyone ready to listen.

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Composer(s)

Maurice Ravel

Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer who is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.
Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the Conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. He made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known.
As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas, and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies and only one religious work. Many of his works exist in two versions: a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance.

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Dinu Lipatti

Press

"Making music reaches further than a sympathic culture perception."
Painist, 01-11-2016

Luister, April 2016
Luister, 08-4-2016

"Answers to a fall vision"
Piano Wereld, 04-4-2016

"itt adorns Libeer that he introduces with much respect and understanding speaks of the two masters and that he does justice by the brightness of the lines (Lignes Claires) in the foreground."
Luister Magazine, 01-4-2016

Pianist, April 2016
Pianist, 01-4-2016

"Libeer handles the rhythms freely, giving the pieces their natural character. "
Nederlands Dagblad, 25-3-2016

"This album is also an exploration of piano sound, which tingles in the warm acoustics of Flagey, such as light sparkles in a glass and gets his tone through the wine that was poured into it. Nothing is more transient than this, Libeer seems to tell us."
Piano Wereld, 16-3-2016

"Julien Lambert honors him with a performance of a nocturne and the Sonatine for the left hand warm, glowing notes with a surprise: Lipatti gave not only to old masters, but also had something beautiful with the rhythmic volkmuziek of his country. His Sonatine sounds in the hands of Lancaster as a toccata with swirling drive which, again, close to the jazz."
De Volkskrant, 04-3-2016

"Because what immediately stands out to his interpretation and piano playing is the absolute brightness of the discourse: the wonderfully balanced melodic lines and the intelligent, almost intellectual structure of the big bow. This combined with flawlessly clear articulation, an almost maniacal attention to and highly sensitive to the touch of the smallest color shift, and the playful nuances in the rhythm, it all delivers an enchanting listening experience."
Klara, 21-2-2016

''Julian Libeer is honoring him with a version of nocturne and the Sonatine for the left hand. Warm musical notes with a surprise: Lipatti did not just care about old masters, but also had astrong connection with the rythmic folk music from his country. His Sonatine in Libeer's hands sound like a toccata with a swirling drive, again, close to the jazz.''
De Volkskrant, 17-2-2016