Hardly any world-class pianist held back as much as the Romanian keyboard artist Radu Lupu. This applied to his appearance in public, sometimes also to his game. He was also one of the few who brought a chair with a backrest to make himself comfortable at the grand piano. It seemed so. If you took a closer look, you noticed that Lupu was by no means supporting his upper body, but kept it in a sensitive balance between leaning and upright posture. The lumbar vertebrae might be fixed, but above that the upper body floated calmly and securely, so that the arms and hands moved freely. This grounded state of limbo determined his game.
Radu Lupu, who was born on November 30, 1945 in Galatz, western Moldova, performed his own works at the age of twelve. One can therefore assume that he was aware of his artistic vocation early on. He may have received decisive piano impulses from his teacher Florica Musicescu, who also taught Dinu Lipatti, and his studies in Moscow with Heinrich Neuhaus and his son Stanislaw certainly influenced him. He won competitions in the 1960s, the Van-Cliburn in 1966, the George-Enescu in 1967 and the Leeds Piano Competition in 1969. An international top career followed, his repertoire concentrated on the Viennese classics and German Romanticism, as well as Claude Debussy and Alexander Scriabin.
With his presence alone, Radu Lupu created the space for the few chords that they need to develop an enormous effect
However, Lupu often left the deepest impressions with pianistically less spectacular works, with pieces with fewer effects. Be it the Andante of a Schubert Sonata or Beethoven’s C minor Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta. When he paused in the Largo after the first chord and introduced an outdated E major chord, which shifted kaleidoscopically to B major and finally to the C minor fallacy, then Lupu widened the beginning of this second movement solely with the Structuring of the time dimension almost into the cosmic.
This movement is composed in such a way that only a pianist who withdraws completely can ignite the trembling embers of this opening. Anyone who uses the orchestra’s silence to stage themselves vainly will fail here. Frightened, many pianists push for the safe lap of the orchestral sound. Radu Lupu endured being alone, and through his presence alone created the space for the few chords that they need to develop an enormous effect.
You can only help this Largo beginning to the necessary size if you yourself have inner ardor and size. What you don’t need is size and keyboard thunder. Radu Lupu’s understanding of the work always enabled a quiet pathos, which miraculously revealed itself even in the most remote Schubert impromptu. There is nothing inspiring than such soulful concentration, such creative stoic composure. On April 17, Radu Lupu died in Locarno, Switzerland.