Radu Lupu

**Radu Lupu**  (30 November 1945 &ndash; 17 April 2022) was a Romanian pianist. He was known by many to be one of the best pianists at the time of his death. Born in Galați, Romania, Lupu began learning piano when he was six years old. Two of his major piano teachers were Florica Musicescu and Heinrich Neuhaus. From 1966 to 1969, he won First Prizes of three of the world's most famous piano competitions: the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (1966), the George Enescu International Piano Competition (1967), and the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition (1969). These victories started Lupu's career. 

## Life
### Early life and education 
Lupu was born in Galați, Romania on 30 November 1945, the son of Meyer Lupu, an attorney, and Ana Gabor, a linguist. From his earliest days, Lupu "had always expressed himself by singing", and was given his first piano at the age of 5. He began piano studies in 1951, as a six-year-old, with Lia Busuioceanu. He made his public debut in 1957, at age 12, in a concert featuring his own compositions. He graduated in 1969. However, in a 1981 interview, when asked about what types of influences his teachers had on him, Lupu answered that he thought of himself as more audodidactic: "My first teacher took me to every orchestral concert, and I am also grateful for what I learned in Moscow, but I think of myself, basically (in music anyway), as somebody who is more autodidactic. I took some from Furtwängler, Toscanini, everywhere...more and more so since I left Moscow."

### Early career 
In 1965, Lupu was placed fifth at the International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna. The following year he won the First Prize in the Second Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; he also won special prizes for the Best Performance of a Commissioned Work (of Willard Straight's "Structure for Piano") and the Best Performance of a movement In the finals, his performance of the first movement of Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2, a required piece, was described by Paul Hume of The Washington Post as "the most fiery and thunderous of any of the six finalists". In addition to the Prokofiev, he performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5. Alicia de Larrocha, who was on the jury, said that Lupu was a genius. "I did not expect it at all. I am just speechless," Lupu said after his victory. However, Lupu didn't do many of the other performances that came with the prize, instead choosing to return to Moscow to continue learning.

A year after his Cliburn Competition victory, in 1967, Lupu won the first prize in the George Enescu International Piano Competition. Two years later, in October 1969, he won the Leeds International Piano Competition; he performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in the Finals. The following month, in November 1969, Lupu played his first solo concert in London; Joan Chissell of *The Times* wrote about his performance of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 7 at the recital: "He brought what seemed like a lifetime's experience to its alternating desolation and pride. Never could music come nearer to speech."

In March and April 1970, Lupu made his first recording for Decca Records of Brahms' Rhapsody in B minor and Three Intermezzi, as well as Schubert's Piano Sonata in A minor. He continued to record for the label for the following 23 years. In August 1970, the 24-year-old pianist made his debut at The Proms, performing Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edo de Waart at the Royal Albert Hall. In November 1970, he made his first concerto recording for Decca, of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster; he also recorded Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor. and in October 1972 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 with Carlo Maria Giulini conducting. The performance of the Brahms with the Cleveland Orchestra and Barenboim was reviewed by Harold C. Schonberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for *The New York Times* . Schonberg was critical of the performance by Lupu and Barenboim describing it as "willful, episodic and mannered, self-indulgent, capricious". However, he added that "yet through all the eccentricities came the feeling of two young musicians trying hard to get out of the rut and once in a while actually succeeding", but that "in future years this kind of approach may jell for them. Right now it does not come off."

### Growing acclaim 
Although Schonberg had been critical of Lupu's debut with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Barenboim in February 1972, he was far more enthusiastic of Lupu's performance in November 1972 of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster at Carnegie Hall, writing, in *The New York Times*, that "his performance did much to redeem the impression he had made last season in the Brahms D minor Concerto. Then he sounded mannered, finicky, artificial. This time he was a different pianist." Schonberg added:The following year, Lupu recorded the piano concertos of Schumann and Grieg with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by André Previn, a recording described by *Gramophone* as "grandly commanding". In February 1974, Lupu performed a recital at Hunter College in New York, which was raved by John Rockwell of *The New York Times*. Rockwell declared Lupu "no ordinary pianist" and wrote about Lupu's performance of Schubert's Piano Sonata in B-flat major:In November 1974, Lupu made his debut with the New York Philharmonic, performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 conducted by James Conlon. In 1975, Lupu debuted with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and gave the premiere of the André Tchaikowsky Piano Concerto, Op. 4 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Uri Segal at the Royal Festival Hall. In 1976, Lupu recorded Brahms' 6 Klavierstücke and 4 Klavierstücke, which was described by *Stereo Review* as "a glowing realization of what Brahms set down that leaves one at a loss for words and simply glad to have ears." Andrew Porter of The New Yorker hailed Lupu as "a master of the most satisfying kind". In addition, *Gramophone* said about the recording:In 1989, Lupu was awarded the "Abbiati" prize by the Italian Critics' Association. In 1995, he won an Edison Award for his album of Schumann's *Kinderszenen*, *Kreisleriana* and *Humoreske* which was also nominated for a Grammy Award. In the Grammy Awards of 1996, he won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) for Schubert's Piano Sonatas in B-flat major and A major.

### 21st century 
In 2006, Lupu was awarded the Premio Internazionale Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and in 2016 was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to music.

## Musical style 
 in Chicago, 2010]]
Lupu uses a regular, straight-backed chair at the piano as opposed to a standard piano bench. He told *Clavier* in 1981 that while sitting on a bench he tended to lean forward, raise his shoulders, become impossibly stiff and develop pains all over. He also said that he practiced with a chair at home and found it natural for him. Nikolai Lugansky said in an interview that Lupu "possesses the rare power of letting the music speak for itself", and András Schiff stated that Lupu has the "rare gift to illuminate anything that he plays with rare musical intelligence". Other pianists who have expressed admiration for Lupu or cite him as an inspiration in their music-making include Emanuel Ax, Daniel Barenboim, Seong-Jin Cho (who named Lupu's recording of the Schubert Impromptus as his favorite), Kirill Gerstein, Stephen Hough, Robert Levin, Maria João Pires, and Daniil Trifonov. In addition, the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin cites Lupu as an inspiration while he was a piano student, saying that listening to recitals and recordings by Lupu "shaped my conception of sound from a very young age", and the cellist Steven Isserlis called him "one of the greatest artists I have ever heard or known". and various works by Schubert for violin and piano with Goldberg. He recorded works of Mozart and Schubert for piano four-hands and two pianos with Murray Perahia for the CBS Masterworks, two albums of Schubert songs with Barbara Hendricks for EMI, and a disc of works by Schubert for piano four-hands with Daniel Barenboim for Teldec. He later moved to Lausanne, Switzerland with his second wife Delia, a violinist in the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. out of "fear of being misunderstood or misquoted".  Lupu usually did not allow radio broadcasts of his performances. In 1994, *Chicago Tribune* noted that Lupu's press kit then contained one single interview he granted to the *Clavier* magazine in 1981. Other published interviews include a "conversation" that Lupu granted to *Clavier* in 1992

Lupu died in Lausanne, Switzerland after a long illness, on 17 April 2022, aged 76.

## Notes 
## References 
## Other websites
* Radu Lupu biography  at Decca
* Musicianguide.com – biography