Franck, Grieg, Shor-Pletnev & Shostakovich Daniel Lozakovich & Mikhail Pletnev

• Edvard Grieg (1843 - 1907): Peer Gynt, Op. 23:
• 1 Grieg: Peer Gynt, Op. 23: Solveig's Song (Transcr. Lozakovich for Violin and Piano) 05:05
• César Franck (1822 - 1890): Violin Sonata in A Major, FWV 8:
• 2 Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major, FWV 8: I. Allegretto ben moderato 06:48
• 3 Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major, FWV 8: II. Allegro 08:28
• 4 Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major, FWV 8: III. Recitativo-Fantasia. Ben moderato - Molto lento 07:28
• 5 Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major, FWV 8: IV. Allegretto poco mosso 06:44
• Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975): Suite from the Gadfly, Op. 97a:
• 6 Shostakovich: Suite from the Gadfly, Op. 97a: Romance (Transcr. Lozakovich for Violin and Piano) 02:50
• Mikhail Pletnev (b. 1970), Alexey Shor (b. 1957): Violin Sonata in B Minor:
• 7 Pletnev, Shor: Violin Sonata in B Minor: I. Allegro agitato (After Shor's Violin Concerto No. 4) 04:16
• 8 Pletnev, Shor: Violin Sonata in B Minor: II. In modo di minuet (After Shor's Violin Concerto No. 4) 05:26
• 9 Pletnev, Shor: Violin Sonata in B Minor: III. Presto (After Shor's Violin Concerto No. 4) 03:18
• Edvard Grieg: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 45:
• 10 Grieg: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 45: I. Allegro molto ed appassionato 08:57
• 11 Grieg: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 45: II. Allegretto espressivo alla romanza 06:56
• 12 Grieg: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 45: III. Allegro animato 07:53
• Total Runtime 01:14:09

Info for Franck, Grieg, Shor-Pletnev & Shostakovich

‘One of my favourite musicians of all time,’ replies the young violinist Daniel Lozakovich when asked about the star pianist Mikhail Pletnev. The two musicians are separated by an age difference of more than 40 years, but what does that mean in music? After all, Daniel Lozakovich has been hailed as an ‘exceptional talent’ by the media such as Le Figaro and has already made guest appearances at such eagerly awaited venues as New York's Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Konzerthaus. Now Lozakovich and Pletnev are presenting their first joint recording as a duo: the album Grieg, Franck, Shor-Pletnev, Shostakovich. It is also the early twenty-year-old's debut album for the Warner Classics label. Lozakovich feels a spiritual connection with the keyboard artist Pletnev that overrides age differences: ‘We don't talk much during rehearsals because we know where the music is going. It's a spiritual community.’ For the programme, the two musicians chose Edvard Grieg's contrasting Violin Sonata No. 3, which oscillates between tender, withdrawn moments and stormy, expressive outbursts.

Grieg himself was regarded as one of the best pianists of his time and played with the most important violin virtuosos in his own performances of his sonatas. Daniel Lozakovich says of the Violin Sonata in A major by the French composer César Franck: ‘It is the epitome of spiritual beauty, an ideal expression of the dialogue between violin and piano with never-ending magical melodies in which one finds an infinite number of colours.’

Daniel Lozakovich, violin
Mikhail Pletnev, piano

Daniel Lozakovich
was born in Stockholm in 2001 and began playing the violin when he was almost seven. He made his solo debut two years later with the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov in Moscow. Since the first performance Daniel has a major influence by Vladimir Spivakov and playes Daniel collaborates with some of the world’s eminent conductors, including Ádám Fischer, Semyon Bychkov, Neeme Järvi, Esa Pekka Salonen, Andris Nelsons, Robin Ticciati, Marc Albrecht, Klaus Mäkelä, Vasily Petrenko, Tugan Sokhiev, Giancarlo Guerrero, Nathalie Stutzman, Leonard Slatkin and Lorenzo Viotti.

Daniel has a close collaboration with Valery Gergiev, with whom he maintains a strong artistic partnership since their first collaboration during the New Year’s concert 2015 at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. Returning to the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra to perform the Beethoven Violin Concerto in the closing concert of the XV Moscow Easter Festival and later at the Stars of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, at the Festival de Saint-Denis, also the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm’s Berwaldhallen, the Rotterdam Gergiev Festival and at the Septembre Musical Montreux Festival with Prokofiev concerto No 2. Daniel opened the Münchner Philharmoniker festival, MPHIL 360°, alongside Valery Gergiev and the Münchner Philharmoniker with Mozart’s Concerto No. 5 and has since been reinvited with a series of performances in the 2019/20 season, in Munich and in Amsterdam, with the Beethoven Concerto.

He signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in June 2016, soon after his 15th birthday. The deal made him the youngest member of DG’s family of artists. It also reinforced his status as a one-in-a-million virtuoso blessed with an entrancing range of expression and musicianship. Lozakovich’s first recording for Deutsche Grammophon, with the Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks, was released in June 2018 and featured Bach’s two concerti for violin and orchestra (BWV 1041 and 1042), and the Partita No. 2 in D minor (BWV 1004) for solo violin. The outstanding success of this debut album was marked in the music charts, the album reaching number 1 on the French Amazon overall charts and number 1 in the classical album charts in Germany

“None but the Lonely Heart”, Lozakovich’s second album for the Yellow Label, was released in October 2019. Dedicated to the music of Tchaikovsky, it includes the Violin Concerto, recorded live with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia and Vladimir Spivakov, the Méditation for violin and orchestra and arrangements of two vocal works, Lensky’s Aria from Eugene Onegin and the song from which the album takes its name: the Romance, Op.6 No.6, “None but the lonely heart”.

Lozakovich performs with such orchestras as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and many more.

Recent highlights include New York debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival with Louis Langrée, as well as tours to Japan and Asia with Valery Gergiev and a Japan tour with the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt under the baton of Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

A remarkable 2019/20 season sees Lozakovich return to the Boston Symphony Orchestra in their subscription series with Andris Nelsons, the Orchestre National de France with Neeme Järvi, debuting with the Cleveland Orchestra with Klaus Mäkelä, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra with Yuri Temirkanov, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London with Vasily Petrenko, a tour with the Orchestre de Paris with Christoph Eschenbach and an invitation by Esa-Pekka Salonen to the subscription series of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

A highly-regarded recitalist, he has made appearances at Les Grandes Voix – Les Grands Solistes in Salle Gaveau, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Tonhalle Zurich, Victoria Hall Geneva, Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi di Milano, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salle Gaveau, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and Mariinsky Theatre.

A regular at international music festivals, including the Verbier Festival, the Riga Jurmala Music Festival, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, Sommets musicaux de Gstaad, Gergiev Festival Rotterdam, Baltic Sea Festival, White Nights Festival, Festival de Pâques – Aix-en-Provence, Tanglewood Music Festival, Blossom Music Festival, Pacific Music Festival, Corinthian Summer Music Festival in Austria, Colmar Festival, Festival de Saint-Denis and many more.

As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with such artists as Emanuel Ax, Ivry Gitlis, Sergei Babayan, Martin Fröst, Renaud Capuçon, Alexander Romanovsky, Maxim Vengerov, Shlomo Mintz and Denis Matsuev.

Awarded many prizes including 1st prize at the 2016 Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition and “The Young Artist of the Year 2017” award at the Festival of the Nations, “Premio Batuta” in Mexico, and the “Excelentia Award” under the honorary presidency of Queen Sofia of Spain.

Lozakovich studies at the Karlsruhe University of Music with Professor Josef Rissin since 2012, and from 2015 has been mentored by Eduard Wulfson in Geneva. Daniel had also studied with Mikhail Kazinik, Natalja Beshulya and Gerhard Schulz.

Daniel Lozakovich plays the “ex-Baron Rothschild” Stradivari on generous loan on behalf of the owner by Reuning & Son, Boston, and Eduard Wulfson, and plays the Stradivarius “Le Reynier” (1727), generously loaned by LVMH.

Mikhail Pletnev
Pianist, conductor, and composer, Mikhail Pletnev is one of the most respected and influential artists of the era. His prodigious talent as a pianist has earned widespread acclaim ever since the 1978 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, where he won First Prize at the age of 21.

An invitation to perform at a 1988 diplomatic summit in Washington led to Pletnev’s friendship with Mikhail Gorbachev and a lifelong commitment to dismantling barriers through the universal language of music.

In 1990, Pletnev formed the Russian National Orchestra – the first independent orchestra in Russia’s history. Under his leadership, the RNO achieved recognition as one of the world’s great orchestras.

Over thirty years later, Pletnev has renewed his commitment to artistic freedom with his founding of the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra, named after the celebrated pianist, conductor, and composer whose own career inspired audiences from all corners of the globe.

Pletnev’s performances and recordings have shown him to be an outstanding interpreter of an extensive repertoire, both as pianist and conductor. His recordings have earned numerous prizes, including a 2005 Grammy Award for his own arrangement of Prokofiev’s Cinderella. He received Grammy nominations for Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes (2004) and the Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev Piano Concertos No. 3 (2003). His critically acclaimed album of Scarlatti’s Sonatas (Virgin/EMI) received a 1996 Gramophone Award, and his recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies and piano concertos (Deutsche Grammophon) was named “Best of 2007” by the New Yorker.

Pianist, conductor, composer and cultural leader – all are significant facets of Mikhail Pletnev’s remarkable life. Yet with his characteristic humility, he insists that he is, simply, a musician.

Booklet for Franck, Grieg, Shor-Pletnev & Shostakovich