Press Review
Album “A Moment Illuminating Eternity” review in La Libre Belgique ***
"By titling her latest album "A Moment Illuminating Eternity" - a reference to Scriabin's famous phrase - Irina Lankova recalls what has always guided her as an artist. A personal, almost organic journey through pieces by Scriabin, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff, with some well-known pieces, but also rare gems. … there is a natural and genuine mastery that allows the music to dematerialise and slip into the hearts…”
La Libre Belgique, Martine Dumont-Mergeay, 24 avril 2024
Wonderfully delicate, Pizzicato Luxembourg
Album “A Moment Illuminating Eternity” review in Pizzicato Luxembourg *****
“I am a moment illuminating eternity », this phrase by Alexander Scriabin is the motto of this recording by Belgian pianist Irina Lankova, which aims to « illuminate the finesse, depth, sensuality and sublimity of the musical worlds » of Scriabin, Chopin and Rachmaninov.
Irina Lankova works out contours very well, does not shy away from contrasts, but her playing always remains wonderfully delicate, as in Chopin’s 1st Ballade, in which the agitation is moderately dosed and a great deal of space is given to thoughtfulness on the one hand, but also to a light playfulness on the other. In any case, the majority of the program consists of calm pieces, which Irina Lankova plays with a constant eye on the colors and richness of the harmonies. She usually builds up tensions very effectively, only to release them again with equal assurance; she plays with extreme clarity, and always with that richness of differentiation that makes the selected works so unmistakable.”
Pizzicato Luxembourg, Remy Franck, December 27, 2023
https://www.pizzicato.lu/herrlich-delikat/
Album “A Moment Illuminating Eternity” **** in L’Echo Belgium
“A musical journey where fire and passion compete with despair and introspection. An inhabited performance filled with subtle nuances, particularly in Scriabin's intimate works. A delightful album!”
L’Echo Belgium, Xavier Flament, December 15, 2023
https://www.lecho.be/culture/musique/l-extase-de-la-pianiste-irina-lankova/10513734
“Golden tone", cover interview in the Pianist Magazine Netherlands/Belgium, December 2022:
“She recently made her debut in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in front of a very enthusiastic Recital Hall. She also added Carnegie Hall in New York and the Salle Gaveau in Paris this spring to a long list of prestigious venues around the world where she shares her passion for music with disarming charm.”
Artist Focus in October issue of International Piano.
Lankova’s current schedule is super-charged with prestigious venues for her solo recitals. She played at the Salle Cortot in Paris on 8 April, followed by her Carnegie Hall debut at the Weill Recital Hall on 13 May. In October she will play at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and then at the Esprit du Piano festival in Bordeaux. Meanwhile, she tours Europe to promote her current album, Elégie, her personal selection of emotional pieces by Rachmaninov, Schubert/Liszt, and Bach. Each piece has an intimate and deep meaning and holds a special meaning for her.
You develop as an individual and a human being as well as a musician, and your understanding of life and music becomes deeper and you have more to say in music when you are 40 than when you were 20, providing you continued to read, learn, play and grow.
It is with all the delicacy of her playing of rare elegance, limpid and fluid that the virtuoso Russian pianist Irina Lankova captivated us during this recital mainly dedicated to Rachmaninoff and Schubert. Because one can only be fascinated by her airy and refined touch with a shivering sensitivity in the service of an exceptional musical universe that she loves and reveals with majesty and grace…
The very endearing artistic personality of the pianist comes from a rich personal background: “I am Russian, but I left Russia around 19 years old and I have lived in different countries: England, France, and Belgium. I traveled a lot, being interested in the different cultures and mentalities that I was discovering. These are experiences that shaped my personality and enriched my interpretations. I am attached to my roots, which are always with me wherever I go, but I also nourish myself with the places where I live, the people I meet, the books I read, the films I see ... " Irina Lankova asserts her cultural heritage in her choice of repertoire: “Like all performers, I went through different phases in my tastes and desires. But Russian composers constitute my favorite repertoire because I always return to them, notably to Rachmaninoff but also to Scriabin, to which I also dedicated an album…
Subjective and fascinating, the “Goldberg Visions” according to Irina Lankova and Isabelle Françaix
For the pianist Irina Lankova, who we will see playing the "Goldbergs" live and appearing on the screen like a sylph simply dressed in a linen sheet, the exercise was far from being simple..
Part of a large selection of Rachmaninoff's pieces, it takes us to Bach's timeless serenity through an intense rereading of Schubert by Liszt.
Musical muse of photographer Peter Lindbergh, Russian pianist living in Belgium Irina Lankova delivers her most personal album, punctuating "Élégie" with pieces by Rachmaninoff, Schubert and Bach which have turned her life upside down..
These Goldbergs are not yet another recording of the most intimate of Bach's great masterpieces, but the audible part of a multimedia project which brings together the Russian pianist Irina Lankova and the French videographer Isabelle Françaix…
.. generosity of its artistic director, the pianist Irina Lankova, who will make you like classical music..
…with her interlocutors – or her public, to whom she likes talking to during her recitals – she gets directly to the point, without raising her voice, with the ability to synthesise and a poetic radicalism that surprises…
Making her art accessible to the greatest number is her true credo.
'Because there is no reason for classical music to affect us and to be present only at weddings and funerals. And why not on Monday morning?'
Irina Lankova brings the famous Goldberg Variations of Bach into St-Michel-and-Gudule Cathedrale of Brussels
Irina Lankova tames the most violent composers with delicate kindness. This was the case again on March 26 in Paris, in Salle Gaveau conquered by …
Lankova, in perceptible harmony with the composer, joins the sonorous and the mystic, the form and the spirit. The play is clear, the lead is natural, the colors are infinite.
A magnificent interpretation, interiorized, contrasted and poetic, of a big sincerity and without any affectation. Real Schubert…
Irina Lankova is the ideal interpreter of Schubert, young and romantic, full of spontaneity, she is not distracted neither by the virtuosity no by the excess of contemplation
…an ample, generous, powerful and lyric playing, which invites to abandon and conquers by its expressivity.
Lankova's control of line was exceptional, at the same time as producing a fine depth of tone. Scriabin's Opus 28 Fantasia proved …
Irina Lankova takes to the hallowed stage of London's Wigmore Hall for her debut at Britain's chamber music Mecca.
…a first–rate recording does justice to the wonderful rich array of sounds that she coaxes from her instrument.
…an unusually effective CD: her touch is genuinely poetic, and she works on a large tonal canvas, conjuring moods and atmospheres with compelling authority.
Lankova fully exploits the Steinway's capabilities; her playing combines almost masculin power with exquisite feminine refinement. This is what makes this pianist so special!
The pianist created a distinct and delicate ambience in her own way by giving to the music an improvised character, driven by a pure inner desire, unpredictable, new and all the more captivating…
Beautiful, ambitious and talented, the Russian pianist Irina Lankova seduced the Belgian public. The release of her first CD, dedicated to Rachmaninov and Liszt, now opens the door of Europe for her.
The eloquent, colourful and dynamic sound of the piano enables the listener to sense in an exceptional way the personal feelings of the interpreter, particularly in the Rachmaninov, where the music is passionate, extremely Russian, but never sugary.