Radu Lupu
SCHUBERT PIANO SONATAS
LONDON D 108670
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SCHUBERT: 3 MARCHES MILITAIRES, 8 VARIATIONS, GRAND DUO
Daniel Barenboim & Radu Lupu
TELDEC 0630-17146-2
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Within the circles inhabited by the habitues of classical music, specifically among those who cherish classical piano music, there are certain performers of certain composers whose recordings have come down to us and who have influenced a good deal of our inner experience of the music as well as of our outer experience of the music as performers of some of it. Radu Lupu is one of these.
Among the great interpreters of Franz Schubert's piano music, few could match the delicacy and clarity of restrained passion of Radu Lupu.
Lupu's interpretations of the Sonatas D660 in A major and D960 in B flat major are intimate Schubert. Lupu seems somehow to let the superficial simplicity of the music belie its deeper secrets until we are suddenly, but with a gracious subtlety, made aware of them.
The subtleties buried in these piano sonatas are beyond description here. What Schubert always tried to do was to take a typical classical form, especially one like the sonata, and tug and pull at its harmonic boundaries, creating often very deep emotional statements that prefigure those of the great romantic composers who were to come after him.
Every Schubert piano sonata contains some of these elements and they are as a group of pieces all too often neglected by pianists.
If you like Schubert solo piano sonatas how about trying out one for two pianists at one piano. That's what the Grand Duo is, an incredible full four movement piano sonata that is bigger but just as symphonic in a certain way as the solo sonatas are. Radu Lupu is joined here by Daniel Barenboim.
Radu Lupu seems as one poised to reveal much of this fine musical terrain to us. This poise, combined with that inherent in Schubert's music is a rare combination and marks out Lupu as a true interpreter of Schubert's music. As I have suggested with other performers, I suggest that if you love Schubert and want to listen to some of the best interpretations of Schubert ever, then try and buy everything Radu Lupu has recorded, especially his Schubert. He gets my five star rating.
Franz Schubert
1797-1828
"Tubby" as he was called among his friends was a real honest to God genius who had much in common with Mozart in the ease with which he was able to set down what he wanted very quickly. Consequently Schubert wrote a lot of music. And fortunate we are that he was able to do so for Schubert lived barely 31 years, the shortest life of any of the greatest classical composers. Of the Vienna school of composers, Schubert was the only one to have been born and died there.
Schubert piano sonatas are all too often neglected by pianists.
