Galați (Romania), 30 November 1945 – Lausanne (Switzerland), 17 April 2022
Two days before one of the world's most phenomenal pianists, Murray Perahia, celebrated his 75th birthday, his pianistic right hand Radu Lupu passed away at the age of 76. Lupu had been suffering from a lingering illness for several years, which prevented him from performing in concerts and eventually led him to move to Lausanne to receive the necessary care.
Radu Lupu was one of those exceptionally gifted musicians with an absolute sense of the purest beauty in music. This rare developed spirit understandably limited itself to the most genius music that can be performed on a contemporary grand piano. For talents like Lupu, that meant a 'limitation' mainly to Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Brahms.
Lupu conquered concert halls worldwide, yet he never sought the spotlight. He preferred to live a withdrawn life and saw himself as a servant of music, whose message he conveyed. He won multiple prizes, was lauded and honored. In addition to performing with orchestras in all corners of the world, he also gave solo concerts and made brilliant and rarely equaled recordings.
With Murray Perahia, he performed multiple four-hand works and works for two pianos, and together they recorded these as well. As a tribute to both, the unfortunately departed and the birthday celebrant, we let you listen here to one of those four-hand recordings.