Sonata in A flat Op 26 - Beethoven
Sonata No 1 Op 24 - Enescu
On an overgrown path (exc) - Janacek
Sonata in C Op 53 (Waldstein) - Beethoven
It's always a pleasure to encounter a pianist with the fastidiousness of ear and minute control of finger that are such hallmarks of Radu Lupu. He's a player who presents constant reminders that piano tone doesn't have to be a given, circumscribed by a particular instrument.
With his back arched against the back of the chair he prefers to a piano stool, he presses and caresses for shades and colourings that most pianists don't even seem to suspect the half-tonne of wood and metal in front of them is capable of yielding. The results are rich in phrases which balance only because a note speaks with a delicacy that seemed impossible until it was achieved.
Curiously, Lupu offered his most consistently revealing and rewarding music-making at the beginning of his NCH/Irish Times Celebrity Recital on Sunday. The opening variations of Beethoven's Sonata in A flat, Op. 26, were full of mesmerising surprises. The Scherzo, a few sharp accents apart, was done with a whispering intensity, the Funeral March with a heavy tread, and the finale with unerring fleetness.
Even with Lupu's lavish resources, the 1924 First Piano Sonata of his fellow-countryman Georges Ensecu has an improvisatory character that remains diffuse. Lupu's control of sonority, texture and layering provided much to marvel at, but the overall effect remained less than the sum of its parts.
Janacek's On an overgrown path is one of the most haunting collections of miniatures the 20th-century produced. Lupu's selection of six from the first set was finely turned, but with the top line often set in too stark relief against the harmonic movement of the other parts.
In Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, Lupu pursued extremes. I don't think I've ever heard the first movement taken at such a lick. The dynamic control of the opening section was quite remarkable, but the speed was still ill-advised. The development section went for naught, and with the movement as a whole sounding unduly lightweight, the overall balance of the work was seriously undermined. The pianism, however, was never less than ravishing.
