Search - Lupu, Beethoven, Brahms :: Radu Lupu - Great Pianists of the 20th Century

Wonderful recordings by a brilliant pianist!

Christopher McKoy | La Canada Flintridge, CA United States | 05/29/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Radu Lupu is a truly great artist. It is an awful shame that this CD (along with most others in this series, "Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century") is now out-of-print. Lupu's playing on Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor is the best I've heard (though for some reason the piece is not recorded nearly enough; it has all the pathos and dramatic intensity of the great Beethoven minor key piano sonatas). On the Brahms Intermezzi Lupu's playing radiates a tender beauty and he makes the Brahms "Theme and Variations" seem the equal of the Sextet andante from which it was transcribed. But perhaps the true gem on this CD-set is the adagio from the Grieg Piano Concerto: Lupu's playing is so elegant here that the orchestra seems almost unnecessary. Lupu's recording of the eight Schubert Impromptus is also wonderful."

Lupu's Nuances Resemble The Infinite Palette Of a Painter!

Raymond Vacchino | Toronto, ON. Canada | 10/14/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Radu Lupu is "A Painter At The Keyboard". In 1969 at the Leeds Competition, which he easily won,at the age of 24, Nikita Magaloff, who sat on the jury on that occasion, was known to say years afterwards, that when he heard Lupu he thought that a new epoch had been initiated!

Lupu started out as a Schubert interpreter, but he quickly took on Beethoven: the five concertos, various sonatas, and the 32 Variations in C minor. Various elements in Lupu's interpretation of the 32 Variations and the "Moonlight" sonata follow in the path of Schnabel tradition. However, anti-traditional par excellence are, for example, in the variations, his reduction in volume and the gentle slowing down in the fifth bar of the theme; then in the first movement of the "Moonlight," sonata, he gives special attention to the bass when the fifth is added to the octave, and is then dropped down an octave at the beginning of the recapitulation giving a Rachmaninoff-like effect. The next representative of the Viennese musical scene to be introduced by Lupu on these two discs is Brahms. The Intermezzo Op.117 No.1 allows us to consider Lupu as an interpretive traditionalist, one that we can claim to be authentic. Lupu's performance does not take aim at a fluidity of rhetoric but at a clean scansion, epic in the manner of Brecht, and structure of phrasing. Each phrase is beautifully elongated, if only slightly, and the spaces between the phrases are elongated just a little bit more. The other aspect brought out in Lupu's playing, is the change of mode in the central section, which in itself would not be heard by the listener, is underlined and conveyed by a change in tone color. We are then taken on a journey into the realm of Schumann's Kinderszenen. Lupu sets out to avoid the traditional approach, the atmosphere of a loving father looking over a child's world. Lupu tries to transport the Kinderszenen, like the Brahm's Intermezzi, into a world in which the child is not seen as a sweet little boy who enchants his father, but as the archetype of a time in life examined in a spirit of scientific inquiry. Freud shockingly discovered in infancy many dark things whose existence had not ever been suspected. Lupu is on Freud's side, a side that I don't particularly agree with, yet Lupu's performance throughout is absolutely poetic, deeply thoughtful, and uplifting.

A few words will adequately introduce the performance of the Grieg Piano Concerto, Op.16. Grieg's concerto would not exist in the form we know it had not Schumann's concerto existed before it. In the 1950's the custom of pairing the two works on the same recording was sanctioned and found to be highly convenient. Lupu does not depart noticeably from the interpretative tradition in his performance of the Grieg concerto. The playing contains the necessary control, and his modesty of feeling and tendency to feel objectively instead of displaying it in turgid pathos is most refreshing.

Radu Lupu performed the complete Schubert sonatas in London, 1970. In the Sonata D.784, Lupu plays with considerable originality. This is apparent in the ringing fortissimo in the first movement, and above all in the finale. The very high velocity coupled with a magnificant clarity of attack lead to the terrifying octaves which are delivered with arrogant bravura. The Moments musicaux D.780, recorded ten years after the sonata, takes us to the very centre of Lupu's poetic approach to Schubert. One will notice the melancholy, dusky tone in which the six pieces are submerged. Lupu's singing quality, always sorrowful and subdued, make this cycle the pianistic equivalent of Winterreise.

And for those who hear Radu Lupu for the first time, will remain either shocked and sceptical or amazed and enchanted.

(source of reference;Tom Deacon)



Author:Raymond Vacchino M.Mus.(MT) A.Mus. L.R.S.M. Licentiate (honorary)"