John Lill, the son of factory workers in the East End of London, was a talented child giving his first concert at the age of nine. Until the age of eleven he was self-taught, but then he started tuition at the Royal College of Music in London and later studied privately with Wilhelm Kempff in Positano. Whilst still at the Royal College of Music, at the age of eighteen Lill performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 Op. 30 in a performance conducted by Sir Adrian Boult and the following year made his London debut at the Royal Festival Hall playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat Op. 73. Said The Times, ‘In making light of its technical difficulties, Mr Lill never made it sound merely glib; always there was a suggestion of Beethovenian strength and drive.’
His career was launched and he played and toured, giving around fifty or sixty concerts a year, mainly in Britain. He then made his New York debut in 1969 at Carnegie Hall and the following year his international career was put firmly on track when he was joint winner (with Vladimir Krainev) of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He became the leading British pianist of his generation and has toured in over fifty countries, regularly performing in the major European capitals as well as in Russia, the Far East, Australia, Canada and America. In the United States Lill has performed with most of the great orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra. In Britain he has appeared with all the major orchestras and has recently performed with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. As a recitalist Lill has appeared throughout the world, in Britain, North and South America, Canada, Europe, the Czech Republic and Australia. In interviews Lill has been candid about his conviction that extra-sensory forces exist and in 1970 believed he had received a spectral visit from Beethoven. ‘I make myself receptive to those forces I know exist and which work through everybody if they’re given half the chance.’ In July 2002 he was attacked by muggers who, when their demands for his wallet were refused, slashed both his hands. Lill sought no specialist help, allowing the wounds to heal in their own time and fulfilling an engagement a mere two months later.
Lill’s repertoire is vast, encompassing more than seventy piano concertos. He is a pianist whose interpretations are reliable rather than individual, a pianist with a strong constitution who loves giving concerts and is constantly touring the world. His solo repertoire is based around Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. He has a reputation as a Beethoven player and in 1974 and 1975 recorded the complete piano concertos with the Scottish National Orchestra and Alexander Gibson for Classics for Pleasure, recording them again in 1991 for Chandos with Walter Weller and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In the earlier recording, the opening of the Concerto No. 4 is particularly arresting and the whole set is a fine achievement. He has also recorded the complete Beethoven piano sonatas for ASV. His recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor Op. 23, made in December 1987 with the London Symphony Orchestra and James Judd, is a welcome antidote to the many overblown and self-aggrandizing performances on disc.
Other notable recording projects include the complete piano sonatas by Prokofiev which Lill recorded for ASV in 1990, and the complete solo and concerto repertoire of Rachmaninov, which he recorded for Nimbus in the mid-1990s.
