Site du label Polymnie

Ce disque est le huitième volume des jusqu’à présent seize CD prévus pour l’intégrale des œuvres pour piano seul de Lühl. Il rassemble les premières œuvres (dans la suite chronologique directe des premiers CD), écrites juste après la fin de sa formation au Conservatoire National de Paris. Lühl compose à la table et n’a pas besoin de support instrumental pour se retrouver dans son monde de sons et de rythmes. Cependant, pianiste, il ne peut résister de répéter certains passages pour commencer à les travailler au clavier. Après dix ans d’études d’harmonie et de contrepoint, son travail est abouti. Ainsi avait-il déjà pensé, enfant, à composer sans relâche pour apprendre, mais pour plus tard, une fois qu’il aurait acquis les outils nécessaires, "ne plus faire de fautes d’écriture et de structure ni d’étourderies de jeunesse", puis à remanier toutes ses oeuvres de jeunesse pour les raccorder avec les oeuvres dites "correctes". Ainsi, il réalisa son projet sur des années, revisitant pièces pour piano, musique de chambre et symphonies en les réécrivant entièrement et ne gardant que le thème principal de manière à constituer à travers son catalogue, une unité, une cohésion stylistique et musicale. Chaque future oeuvre s’inspire de la précédente, créant ainsi un fil conducteur.
Son catalogue est considérable et regroupe déjà près de 260 opus (LWV = Lühl-Werke- Verzeichnis, "catalogue des œuvres de Lühl "), dont dix symphonies, trois concertos pour piano, diverses pièces pour soliste et orchestre, des poèmes symphoniques, de la musique de chambre... et pas moins de 190 pièces pour piano. Son opéra Unvergessen (Inoubliable) en trois actes sur un drame historique a été créé en janvier 2004 à Bolzano, capitale du Tyrol du Sud italien (10 représentations).

L’Association Vauban lui a commandé une série d’œuvres commémoratives pour célébrer l’année des 300 ans de la mort du Maréchal en 2007 : un Requiem In memoriam Vauban, le poème symphonique La Chamade sur l’ouvrage Traité d’attaque des places en douze temps, une symphonie de chambre pour orchestre à cordes, un quatuor à cordes, illustrant des lettres originales de Vauban, une Suite Royale pour corde ou flûte seule.
Lühl reste un compositeur foncièrement classique, suivant la tradition des contemporains de Brahms, Tchaïkovski, Rachmaninoff ou Scriabine. Fortement attaché à la symbolique, ses pièces libres portent souvent des titres énigmatiques et méditatifs. Lühl est un "international", se sentant, peut-être par ses origines familiales, artistiquement slave et germanique. Outre des transcriptions et des pièces individuelles, son catalogue pour piano seul comporte neuf sonates, onze ballades, une trentaine de moments musicaux, une trentaine de préludes, des valses, des études et des cycles d’œuvres. Pendant des années, il a préparé en tant que pianiste l’intégrale des oeuvres d'Alexandre Scriabine. Ensuite, c’est à Serge Rachmaninov qu’il dédie son engagement pianistique avec toute son énergie en cherchant des œuvres nouvelles et inédites. Lühl-Dolgorukiy est un artiste complet. Grand amateur d’Art Nouveau, de peinture impressionniste et d’architecture de la Renaissance italienne, il est également l’auteur de nombreuses œuvres littéraires en trois langues dans les thématiques les plus diverses (essais, romans à caractère historique, philosophique, futuriste ou dramatique, recueils de poésies, ouvrages scientifiques musicologiques, nouvelles...). Il travaille en collaboration avec les éditions phonographiques POLYMNIE pour l’intégrale de l’enregistrement de ses œuvres.

Variations sur "Il est né le divin enfant " LWV 107
Le thème, plus que populaire depuis des générations dans les paroisses françaises, se vit un jour transformé par l’imagination du compositeur qui lui ajouta une série de sept variations. La pièce, commencée en fin 2006, fut terminée le 23 février 2007.

Moment musical LWV 113
Un autre moment musical de la série de ses petites pièces libres, composé en une seule journée (18 août 2007).

3 pièces lyriques LWV 114
Prélude, Berceuse et Fantaisie-Valse sont les titres individuels de cette petite suite de trois pièces contrastées, composées entre le 16 et le 31 octobre 2007.

2 préludes LWV 119
L’un des quelque 23 moments musicaux composés en tout (5-6 avril 2006).

Sonate n°3 LWV 120
Troisième pièce d’une complexité rare comme toutes ses sonates en un mouvement, cette pièce fur composée en trois jours (du 27 février au 1er mars 2008).

"Jagdstück" ("air de chasse") LWV 122
Alors qu’il était en train de travailler à sa sonate, cette petite pièce vit le jour le 28 février 2008. A considérer comme une sorte de travail " récréatif ".

Variations d’après un thème de J-S. Bach LWV 125
Cette importante série de variations autour d’un thème choral librement inspiré de Bach, illustre à merveille les acquis contrapuntiques du compositeur dans une écriture romantique et enjouée. Composées entre le 22 et le 25 avril 2008.

Nocturne LWV 129
Cette longue pièce méditative fut composée en Allemagne le 9 août 2008.

Valse LWV 130
Comme la plupart des autres petites pièces, cette charmante valse fut écrite le 10 juillet 2008.

This recording is the eighth volume of at least sixteen CDs planned as Lühl’s complete works for piano solo. This is “a moment of great happiness in my life”, he says, although sought after by everybody, and he lacks time for himself and composing. Lühl composes while sitting at the table and does not need any instrumental support to find harmony, sounds and rhythms because he hears them in his head. However, as a pianist he cannot resist playing certain passages he has just written just for pure digital pleasure and satisfaction. He has never changed his way of working.After ten years of studies in harmony and conterpoint his training was complete. Since childhood he always knew he would spend every moment composing once he acquired the necessary tools to do so. And so he completed his project over the years revisiting his piano pieces, chamber music and symphonies by rewriting them entirely and only preserving the main thematic elements, so as to create a unity in a stylistic and musical cohesion throughout his catalogue.
At the same time he continues to compose new pieces. Each future work is inspired by the previous one, creating in a way the thread that runs though time and space in his music. Each written piece is a witness, a page from a diary to be decoded by the listener. Lühl composes directly on paper without any drafts. His intellectual work goes like Arnold Schönberg’s case: the music runs through his head while walking or giving classes, or even riding his bicycle...! And often in addition to the work, “the inspiration comes while writing”. Once the sequence is clear in his head he only has to write it down. He works very quickly and his catalogue is quite large given his young age and already includes 260 opuses (LWV= Lühl-Werke-Verzeichnis, in English ‘Lühl’s composition catalogue’), which include eight symphonies, three piano concertos, various pieces for solo and orchestra, symphonic poems, chamber music, ... and at least 200 pieces for piano. His opera “Unvergessen” (“Unforgotten”) in three acts based on a historical drama was performed ten times in January 2004 in Bolzano, the Tyrolean capital of Northern Italy.
Several years ago, he started working with the “Vauban Association” to compose commemorative works on the great French Marshall de Vauban (1633-1707) for his tercentenary which was celebrated in 2007. He was in charge of the musical part and composed four great pieces: a string quartet, a Requiem in memoriam Vauban, a symphonic poem entitled la Chamade for choir and orchestra which illustrates Vauban’s essay on the attack and defence of fortified citadels, and a suite for solo string entitled suite royale (‘King suite’) honouring the memory of Louis XIV.
His pieces for piano are organized in cycles in accordance with his desire for unity throughout his work. He refuses “unusual” commissions (e.g. clarinet and flute, accordion and piano...), and by definition, all that is not useful for his purposes. He writes at the moment of inspiration and for stylistic unity. Eventually, his ultimate goal is to leave to posterity a cultural patrimony of quality as well as an entity which has witnessed his artistic processes during these years of creativity.

Even in the choice of the nomenclatura, the construction of the work and its topic, Lühl remains a classical composer, following in the tradition of Brahms, Tchaikovsky or young Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, avoiding extravagant experiments. Strongly attached to symbolism, his free pieces often carry enigmatic and meditative titles. Having finished a twin training in piano and conducting at the Conservatoire National de Paris in 1995, he never went back to it as a teacher, as so many do. Lühl is an international musician, but he also feels, because of his family roots, closely connected to the Slavs and Germans. His music “lasts”, takes time to expand during long progressions. “Every work is a variation of the previous one with all its own innovations; the entire work of an artist actually is just a variation, a reflexion of his personality. [...] One has to find oneself through Beauty which one has so seek and find as one’s own Truth. It’s only like this that we can create our own style and our own musical personality, by using reflexes to formulate that which we like in our pieces. It’s in finding ourselves through music that we are capable of moving the listener, this silent judge who contributes to insuring a work’s perenity.”
Besides transcriptions and individual pieces, his catalogue for piano alone includes ten sonatas, eleven ballads, thirty musical moments and about forty preludes, waltzes, etudes and suites. Today, he dedicates his piano activity to Serge Rachmaninoff with all his energy, researching new and unedited works and recording them for Polymnie.
Lühl is an accomplished artist: an enthusiastic amateur of French Art Nouveau, the impressionist painters and Italian Renaissance architecture. He is also the author of several essays, short stories and novels on philosophy, history, science-fiction as well as poetry and scientific works on musicology. His recordings are available at the music label POLYMNIE, for which he already recorded several works of his own, conducting an orchestra for his Fifth Symphony (POL 150 657), or playing the piano, and also seven CDs of piano pieces by S. Rachmaninoff. He is planning to record his entire work (about 55 CDs).

Variations on "Il est né le divin enfant" LWV 107
This very popular French theme, which even today continues to inspire many faithful church member generations, tickled Lühl’s creativity to a point that he one day decided to write a set of seven variations on this cradle-like theme. The work was completed on February 23rd, 2007.

Moment musical LWV 113
Another one of his short free pieces, composed in only one day (August 18th, 2007).

Three lyrical pieces LWV 114
Prelude, Cradle-song and Fantasy-Waltz are the titles of these three short and contrasted pieces, composed between the 16th and the 31st of October, 2007.

Two preludes LWV 119
The two pieces were both written in one day, on February 26th, 2008.

Sonata #3 LWV 120
Like all his sonatas, this work follows its predecessors in both its structure and technical virtuosity. It was completed in only three days (from February 27th to March 1st, 2008)

"Jagdstück" ("Hunting Tune") LWV 122
While he was working on his sonata, he also composed this little funny piece as a recreation motive (February 28th, 2008).

Variations after a theme inspired by J-S. Bach LWV 125
This important series of variations, ornating a freely inspired theme after a Chorale by J-S. Bach, expresses the composer’s skills for counterpoint and melodic entwinement. It was also composed in only three days – between April 22nd and 25th, 2008.

Etude LWV 128
On July 8th, 2008, Lühl got the idea of composing a short etude for piano – a very condensed bundle of energy for the audience!

Nocturne LWV 129
This long and meditative piece was composed on August 9th, 2008.

Valse LWV 130
Like all his other short pieces, this little waltz was composed in one day, on July 10th, 2008.

Lühl-Dolgorukiy travaille en collaboration avec les éditions phonographiques Polymnie pour l’intégrale de l’enregistrement de ses œuvres. Sont déjà disponibles ses quatre premiers Quatuors à cordes (POL 480 243 et POL 480 364), le Requiem Vauban (POL 790 344), sa cinquième Symphonie sous sa direction (POL 990 361) et de nombreux CD Rachmaninoff, dont le deuxième Concerto pour piano op. 18 et la Rhapsodie sur un thème de Paganini dans une réduction pour deux pianos de l’auteur. Notons aussi un travail considérable avec l'édition des oeuvres de John Williams Star Wars, (POL 151 686) Harry Potter, (POL 105 109) Jurassic Park, (POL 108 115).....d’autres albums sont en préparation.

Lühl's recordings are available at the music label Polymnie, for which he already recorded several works of his own, conducting an orchestra for his Fifth Symphony (POL 990 361), or playing the piano, and more recently a CD of piano pieces by S. Rachmaninoff and the Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini as well as the Second piano concerto op. 18 (POL 150 865), also several CD by John Willams, Star Wars, (POL 151 686) Harry Potter, (POL 105 109) Jurassic Park, (POL 108 115).. Lühl is planning to record his entire work (about 50 CDs).