Forgotten Melodies

Sony Classical is thrilled to announce the debut album of world-renowned pianist Alexander Malofeev titled Forgotten Melodies. Today, he releases the first single, Forgotten Melodies I, Op. 38/VI. Canzona serenata.

“A world piano revolution” (Der Standard): at just twenty-three, Alexander Malofeev has already become one of the most captivating pianists of his generation. Praised by Il Giornale for embodying “the piano mastery of the new millennium,” he has performed with leading orchestras worldwide.

Born in Moscow in 2001, Malofeev studied at two of Russia’s most renowned institutions: the Gnessin Special School and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. In 2014, at just thirteen, he won first prize at the junior edition of the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Today, Alexander Malofeev lives in Berlin. With this recording, he seeks to connect traces of his heritage with those of the present. “I chose Berlin more or less by accident, but previously it had been home to Glinka, Glazunov and Medtner at some point in their lives.”

For his album, Malofeev has selected four composers who were all born in Russia but died far from their homeland: Alexander Glazunov in Paris (1936), Mikhail Glinka in Berlin (1857), Sergei Rachmaninoff in Beverly Hills (1943), and Nikolai Medtner in London (1951).

Yet more than the theme of exile - which shaped the lives of these four composers -what moves Malofeev most is another idea: “They all share a similar feeling of nostalgia,” he explains. “But you cannot really figure out which moment in time they are actually nostalgic for. It’s almost as if they are nostalgic for a very similar setting which never really existed in history. It’s like it is totally made up, almost a dream world - and you can find it everywhere on this album.”

Alongside Medtner’s cycle Forgotten Melodies, the most extensive work on the album is Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Sonata, composed while he was still in Russia and revised nearly two decades later in Switzerland. “I’ve loved Rachmaninoff for as long as I can remember,” Malofeev admits - referring to his composing and piano: “His freedom, his spirit, his hands, his genius.” Malofeev deliberately chose the revised version of the Sonata, as it is shorter, more concise, and more economical in its writing - and therefore closer to Medtner.

Not yet in his mid-twenties, Alexander Malofeev has already stepped into the international spotlight, thanks to his phenomenal technique and, above all, the remarkable expressiveness of his playing. Conductor Riccardo Chailly notes that he is “not just a child prodigy,” recognizing that Malofeev “already possesses depth as well as technical, musical and mnemonic abilities.” The international press has hailed him as a “Russian genius” (Corriere della Sera); his performances are described as a “piano-world revolution” (Der Standard), his “magnetic pull” and ability to create a “weightlessly singing tone” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) already marking him, at such a young age, as a truly exceptional artist.