For Radu Lupu an adequate let alone a successful performance was as elusive as The Holy Grail; somehow even on his great days he felt he had come too short. In common with Myra Hess('listening to myself is like going to my own funeral'), Artur Schnabel( his reference to 'the Abbey Road torture Chamber'), to Clifford Curzon(you see, my dear, the great thing about a live performance is that it disappears like an imprint on water; one's failings and transgressions magically erased'). Lupu came to dread and finally forbid the presence of microphones or cameras at his concerts. For him a performance was something fluid and free with an improvisatory element the reverse of rigid, forever changing and evolving, never a fly in amber. My one attempt to persuade him to make more records after his final and unforgettable disc of the Schumann Humoresque, was met with a polite but firm refusal; ;no more records!' My mission on behalf of Decca failed. while their own begging letter met with an even firmer negative;' I have put your letter in the fridge.'
It is perhaps easy for the more conventionally or career- minded pianist to speak of a need for greater realism, to take a philosophical attitude to the vagaries, the inevitable ups and downs of performance. But this was hardly the case with Lupu, a unique and beloved artist who had difficulty loving himself. In a rare admission, made half jokingly, he conceded 'I am not a great pianist, but I am a very good musician.' Perhaps above all he was aware, in Michael Tippett's words, of 'the enormous effort of interpretation.'
His success on the competition circuit with three first prizes at the Van Cliburn, the George Enesco and Leeds, is yet another anomaly. Outwardly this 'lyricist in a thousand' was the reverse of a competition pianist, scorning showmanship or a Prima Donna element. At the Cliburn he confounded his listeners expectations with a heaven-storming performance of Prokofiev's ultra-demanding Second Concerto. Alicia de Larrocha, a jury member, was so moved by his playing that she spent the competition dreading that her colleagues would hear things differently. She never served on a jury again, unwilling to suffer the anguish of possible injustice.
Inevitably, given his nature and temperament, Lupu had his less successful days I recall a recital that included Beethoven's opus 111 and the Janacek Sonatas when he sounded uncomfortable and ill at ease. Somehow the magical sense of reverie and the tonal bloom for which he was famous failed to materialise. But elsewhere he could leave a lifelong memory. In the Brahms D minor Concerto and most of all in a recital that included Schumann's 'Davidsbundlertanze' when in the valedictory waltz his playing made you unconscious of instrument, concert hall or any conceivable reality taking you into another and ethereal realm. I would number this recital among the greatest I have ever attended.
Which brings me to the present issue, a six CD release of for long buried treasure lovingly gathered from a variety of sources, from Leeds, Aldeburgh and the Dutch Radio. Lupu would never have approved of their release and while we may mourn his death we can celebrate the opportunity to renew a sense of his unique stature in a wide variety of composers, in Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Mussorgsky, Debussy, Bartok and Copland.
In Mozart's 18nth Concerto in B flat you are made more aware than ever of the indivisible nature of his operatic and instrumental inspiration. The finale, in particular, confirms Lupu's transcendental dexterity, a technique in the fullest and richest sense of the term, humanly alive with every colour and inflection(this from a pianist who claimed, 'I have no technique!'). In Haydn's F minor Variations you may well wonder when you have heard greater poise and beauty surfacing through the composer's pre-Romantic solemnity.
Schubert was always among Lupu's greatest loves and his London cycle of the complete Piano Sonatas was given long before he stopped such marathons, will linger forever in the minds and hearts of all who heard it. In the 'Relique' Sonata he will have none of Sviatoslav Richter's celebrated/infamous slow tempi. The playing both here and in the D major Sonata is supremely natural, less monumental than Gilels in the 'Schulplatter' Scherzo, but also less waywardly romantic and more 'con moto' in the second movement, less teasingly piquant than Kempff in the outwardly innocent 'sing a song of sixpence' finale.
Schumann's First Sonata(once described as 'a farrago of fatuities,'' one for Slominsky's 'Lexicon of Invective!') finds Lupu at his most introspective, yet even while lost in romantic reverie still maintaining line and impetus. The pleading second movement 'Aria' was surely composed with Lupu in mind. In the 'Fashingsschwank aus Wien, Schumann's other 'Carnaval' Lupu's scale and thunder—as remarkable as his restraint-- particularly in the final pages produces an understandable storm of applause and his performance of the 'Etudes Symphoniqaues' is weighty and substantial. Less deft and fanciful than from Geza Anda, the emphasis very much on the qualifying 'symphoniques.'
Chopin was never a major part of Lupu's repertoire, so the inclusion of the First Scherzo(Chopin at his most violent and iconoclastic) and the opus 27 Nocturnes is a special surprise. Both the Scherzo and the C sharp Nocturne are given with an awe-inspiring response to their drama, while the Italianate quasi-operatic lyricism of the D flat Nocturne 'sings' with unforgettable sense of its beauty.
The Russian repertoire, despite Lupu's work with Heinrich Neuhaus and later with his son Stanislav, was largely absent from his range as he concentrated more and more on his chief loves, on Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms, which makes his performance of Mussorgsky's 'PIctures at an Exhibition', again, special; particularly when played with such a vivid sense of the pictorial, and in the final 'The Great Gate of Kiev', grandeur.
Bartok's 'Out of Doors' and most of all the Copland Sonata are, again, reminders of the too often unacknowledged breath of Lupu's repertoire. He is fuller and with greater intensity than, say Zoltan Kocis(Hungarian and a greatly celebrated performer of Bartok) and I was lost in admiration at his way with Copland's all-American, audaciously anti-pianistic monument to austerity.; in the stuttering figuration of the 'Vivace' and in the composer's scorn for easy appeal.
As a final surprise there is Debussy's 'D'un cahier d'esquisses.' If there was no Ravel or Faure in Lupu's repertoire, there was occasional Debussy including the first book of Preludes. D'un cahier d'esquisses' was given its first performance by the composer and was greatly admired by Ravel and Ricardo Vines, champion of the contemporary and unfamiliar and Its elusive nature is captured to perfection by Lupu.
Glorious as this is issue readers should be reminded that now that the flood gates are open there is more, so much more. On the Doremi label you can hear one marvel after another including the Gershwin Concerto and Rhapsodie in Blue, as teasing and innovative as you could wish. He makes the composer sound limited by comparison.
Generous- natured to the last(though he could be critical when required) Lupu confessed his greatest inspiration came from Furtwangler and Toscanini. There was admiration for Mitsu Uchida('I wish I could play Chopin Etudes like that!'), for Rubinstein and Horowitz(his polar opposite) and most of all for Mieczyslav Hoorszowski; 'he speaks to me like no one else' The same could be said of Radu Lupu; in the words of my former colleague Joan Chissell, 'never could music have come nearer to speech.'
Deca's album includes a warm-hearted and informative appreciation, many photographs of Lupu whether young and beardless or in his later Rasputinesque appearance. There are also ten tributes from an assortment of pianists, conductors, record producers and agents.
Bryce Morrison