… instance, the Ballade was taken at a brisk pace, containing the fervour and passion that the composer asked for. There was a pleasing balance between lyricism and fire in his playing, as evidenced by the last Intermezzo. Johannes Brahms: 6 Piano Pieces, Op. 118: No. 1. Intermezzo in A Minor (Radu Lupu, piano) Compared with Perahia’s rendition, Radu Lupu presented a more introspective reading of the set, with the exception of the Ballade, in which Lupu pulled off a surprisingly thrilling performance. In slower pieces, like No.2, his playing was meditative, reflective and highly expressive. Unsurpassable emotional …

… soon disrupted as it gradually dissolves into the more agitated, though still subdued middle section in E-flat minor, which is full of poignancy and sentimentality. As the music returns to its first theme, the melody is split between two hands, with a sense of reminiscence and personal recollections. After a heart-wrenching “sighing” motif, the music provides some relief at the end. Radu Lupu’s rendition of this piece was intimate and deeply personal. With a seemingly “hammerless” touch, he let the music breathe and flow naturally. The emotions conveyed were restrained, particularly when

… suffering agent, tricky ex-girlfriends, the city financier who wants to bankroll a new recording label to his petulant young protégé Vadim, and there is even a cameo of the late great Sviatoslav Richter in the form of ageing Russian pianist Konstantine Serebriakov. Schubert: Impromptu in G flat, D899/3 (Radu Lupu) Through the central character of Philip, the book examines the complex inner life of a great artist, the passion and the pain, the travails of practising and preparing for concerts, endlessly feeding the creative spirit, the conflict between life and art, and how music has the power to …

… 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 …