Sabine Liebner

Sabine Liebner is primarily active as an interpreter of New Music. Critics praise her interpretations as exemplary and visionary, and are fascinated by her sophisticated tone, which she uses to create magical soundscapes and new, even radical interpretations with a deep emotional intensity.   Meret Fortser of BR Klassik says that Liebner’s playing lets the music breathe; Volker Hagedorn of DIE ZEIT writes that one has the impression of being able to pick up the sounds and feel them like beautiful stones.  Impressive is also her decision to only play music to which she feels an inner affinity. Music making is for Liebner the exploration of unknown terrain, combined with a retreat into introspection – solitude in the most positive sense. Sabine Liebner tries to listen to a score with no preconceptions and discover its innate musical language, and then to make this audible in a gentle yet energetic way.   Sabine Liebner has played many premieres of works by composers such as Pauline Oliveros, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, Cornelius Cardew, Jörg Widmann, Olga Neuwirth, Franco Donatoni, and Tom Johnson. She is also involved with the development of innovative programs and festivals. In 2011, at the Forum Neuer Musik in Cologne, Liebner performed the four books of John Cage’s Etudes Australes over the course of four successive evenings; this was only the fourth time the entire cycle had ever been played. The recordings of these extraordinary performances were broadcast by Deutschlandfunk on five consecutive Saturdays in July 2011. In 2012, at the festivals Klangspuren Schwaz and Transart, she became the first performer ever to play a complete version of the piece within the space of 26 hours, with portions of the work performed in three different locations.  At the Gasteig in Munich, Liebner played the complete sonatas for piano by Galina Ustvolskaya as well as John Cage’s Music for Piano. Reinhard Schulz wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that her performance of Morton Feldman’s Triadic Memories made it possible to discover a completely new Feldman.  As a soloist and chamber musician, Sabine Liebner has performed at the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the Kasseler Musiktagen, the Klangspuren Schwaz, the Forum Neuer Musik Köln, the Berliner Festspiele/MaerzMusik, the Munich Biennale, the Münchner Klaviersommer, the Akademie der Künste in Hamburg, the Szene Leipzig, and the Bauhaus in Dessau. She has played chamber music with members of the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra and the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and has performed with Jörg Widmann, Muriel Cantoreggi, Christian Hommel, and David Moss, among many others. Liebner has also collaborated with visual artists such as Jan Kopp (Paris) and Brunner/Ritz (Munich).  In 1999, Liebner founded the concert series “Morton Feldman & Friends” in Munich, which according to Reinhard Schulz (neue musikzeitung) “attained cult-like status”. In these concerts, in addition to Feldman’s works for piano solo, Liebner also performed his highly complex chamber music works For Philip Guston, Patterns in a Chromatic Field, Piano and String Quartet, For Christian Wolff, For John Cage, Trio, and Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello.  Numerous live as well as studio recordings for broadcasting institutions such as BR, WDR, HR, DLF, SR, and NDR document the versatility of Sabine Liebner’s artistic work; she has also taken part in film productions for WDR/SWF, BR, and NMZ Media. She has been featured in broadcasts and magazines such as DLF’s “Atelier Neuer Musik”, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (3/2009, 01/2012), and PianoNEWS (3/2010). Liebner’s discography includes highly praised CDs for RGO, Eversong, NEOS, Oehms Classics and, since 2011, WERGO. Her recording of John Cage’s Etudes Australes was voted CD of the Year by the listener in 2012, praised by Eleonore Büning (FAS) as a “fantasically sonorous new complete recording”, and included in WIRE REWIND 2012. Marco Feei in the nzz said “her playing captivates with a rare sense of intuition.” Her recording of Feldman’s Triadic Memories received the “ffff” from TÉLÉRAMA, the “Discos excepcionales” from scherzo, five stars at FonoForum, and was recommemded by Kultur Spiegel; her recording of Feldman’s Palais de Mari received the highest rating from Klassik heute. In GRAMOPHONE, Philip Clarke wrote of her recording of the complete piano music of Galina Ustvolskaya, “Sabine Liebner moved Ustvolskaya interpretation to new heights.”  The CDs Abstract Sound Objects, with music by Earle Brown, and Morton Feldman’s Early Piano Music were released in 2012. Liebner’s recording of John Cage’s Solo for Piano followed in 2013. In the Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, Stefan Drees said Liebner “effortlessly confirms her position as the most important and uncompromising Cage interpreter of our time.” Her recording of Cage’s ONE 7, FOUR 6 appeared in February 2014. Dirk Wiescholiek described it in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik as “a perfect example of concentrated and imaginative interpretation”, and Rainer Aschemeier wrote in incoda, “Sabine Liebner has once again achieved a veritable stroke of genius.”  A CD with the suites Ttai and Ka by Giancinto Scelsi was released in March 2015, and a recording with works by Henry Cowell and John Cage will appear in September 2015.  Sabine Liebner studied at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich with Karl-Hermann Mrongovius and took master classes with Leonhard Hokanson, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Peter Feuchtwanger, Maurizio Pollini und George Crumb.
Her repertoire includes works by John Adams, Luciano Berio, Earle Brown, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Henry Cowell, George Crumb, Franco Donatoni, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass, Toshio Hosokawa, Nicolaus A. Huber, Tom Johnson, Mauricio Kagel, György Kurtag, Helmut Lachenmann, Olivier Messiaen, Federico Mompou, Olga Neuwirth, Pauline Oliveros, Giacinto Scelsi, Alfred Schnittke, Charlotte Seither, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Galina Ustvolskaja, and Christian Wolff.
In 1998, Liebner received the city of Munich’s Music Prize and in 2005 a Munich music scholarship; in 2007 she was chosen as one of the German pianists recommended by the Goethe Institute and again awarded the Munich Music Prize.