… he seems completely depleted at the end. Nonetheless, I secretly wish that he would pace his career and nurture his rare talent with an exceptional dose of tender loving care. Being a nagging mother, I also wish he would get a haircut! Trifonov: Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 Radu Lupu was my idol for years, since I heard him at the Leeds Competition in 1969, and subsequently when he collaborated with Murray Perahia in duets. That day, when Lupu was scheduled to perform Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto, the talk of town was that he had not …

… Intermezzo,” a word which translates as “something in-between”. Like Chopin’s Preludes and Schumann’s Romances, they work as stand-alone piano pieces or can be performed as a complete set. Brahms: 4 Piano Pieces, Op. 119 - No. 4. Rhapsody in E-Flat Major (Radu Lupu, piano) Rachmaninoff was a master of the miniature form and one finds many echoes of his piano concertos in his Moments Musicaux, Morceaux, Preludes and other small-scale piano works. Rachmaninoff: Moments musicaux, Op. 16 - No. 5 in D-Flat Major: Adagio sostenuto (Boris Giltburg, piano) Composers have …

Martin EngstroemCredit: https://www.verbierfestival.com/The spectacular display of superstars in the 2018 Verbier Festival program completely dazzled me. The program comprised of a long list of celebrated “who's who” in the music universe - András Schiff, Martha Argerich, Richard Goode, Evgeny Kissin, Grigory Sokolov, Yuja Wang, Radu Lupu, Janine Jansen, Maxim Vengerov, Pinchas Zukerman, Martin Fröst, Mischa Maisky and family, Valery Gergiev, Christoph Eschenbach, Anne Sofie von Otter, Thomas Quasthoff, Mikhail Pletnev, Daniil Trifonov, Lucas Dubarge, Ebène Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, so on and so forth. As an articulate friend puts it: “WOW! A gathering …

… soirees. Such pieces were often based on opera themes and Liszt, and his great rival, Thalberg, wrote a number of 'opera fantasies' or "paraphrases", full of opportunities for showy playing and fully utilising the range of the instrument. Such works were considered rather inferior to the more serious "sonata-fantasy" or "fantasy-sonata". Today the Fantasy tends to be regarded as a shorter work, improvisatory and imaginative in style. For more of the best in classical music, sign up to our E-Newsletter Radu Lupu Plays Brahms' Rhapsody in G minor

… satisfaction" (resolutions, full cadences, returning to the home key etc.). We can highlight these by the use of rubato – arriving at a note or end of a phrase sooner or later to achieve either surprise or satisfaction. Johannes Brahms: 3 Intermezzos, Op. 117 - No. 2 in B-Flat Minor (Radu Lupu, piano) Rubato is not always written into the score as a musical sign, so it is up to us, as the performer, to decide where it might be most effective to alter the tempo of the music slightly. As a simple rule of thumb, we generally slow down …

… and musically challenging, such as Poulenc’s Piano Sonata for Four Hands, Stravinsk’y Rite of Spring and works by Rachmaninoff and Messiaen. Some of the greatest pianists of the 20th century have enjoyed the very special relationship of the piano duet, including Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboin, Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia, and Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick, the great British piano duo from an earlier era. The Labèque sisters, Katia and Marielle, are the most famous piano duo in the world. They have created a foundation to commission new works for piano duo and orchestra, in …

… t listen to it that much,’ he says, ‘but it’s good to have this window into another world.’ Credit: http://www.classictoulouse.com/He regularly listens to recordings of his colleagues’ work, and has a long list of inspirations, including Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Radu Lupu, András Schiff, Yuja Wang, and Kirill Gerstein. ‘It gets kind of stressful, that’s why I listen to lots of other pianists. There are so many versions of every piece that you play that you have to keep up with what’s been said about …

… stands between the musical score on her stand and the audience in the hall. She plays to deliver the message of the composer to the audience. She always feels that the music, and therefore the composer, must always be higher than herself. We talked about influential performers and she said the list was so long: Claudio Arrau, Annie Fischer, Murray Perahia, and Radu Lupu were just a few of the pianists she held in esteem. The availability of rare recordings on Spotify and YouTube was of importance in training one’s ears. When asked if she had any advice