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About Radu Lupu
Hometown
Galați, Romania
Born
1945
Genre
Classical
A pianist who provoked a universal sense of awe from audiences and fellow musicians alike, Radu Lupu combined a distinctive poetic inwardness with a natural, unmannered freedom that seemed to strike at the heart of whatever he was playing. He performed as if in communion with the music, able to cast a spell over the audience in a way that has little to do with technique, and everything to do with the intensity of his vision. Born in Galați, Romania, in 1945, he studied in Bucharest and then at the Moscow Conservatory, where he worked with Heinrich Neuhaus. He won the Van Cliburn Competition in 1966, and his fame was sealed when he won the Leeds Piano Competition in 1969. Over the years, Lupu became increasingly elusive: Even in his prime, his public appearances often came at short notice in out-of-the-way venues, attended by enthusiasts unsure when the next opportunity would arise. He was highly selective in what he recorded: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, but sadly no Bach, Chopin, or Debussy, all of whose music he played. His last solo recording, of Schumann’s Kreisleriana (1838), Kinderszenen (1838), and Humoreske (1839), was made in 1993. Such scarcity gives a special value to what he did set down, and is all the more reason to celebrate every recording, not least his sublime 1991 account of Schubert’s B flat major Piano Sonata, D960 (1828), and a miraculous 1985 album of Mozart and Schubert piano duets with Murray Perahia. Lupu died in 2022 after a long illness.
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