Eric Lu became one of the pianists of the moment when he won the Leeds Piano Competition in 2018. He placed highly, as a teenager, at the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw three years earlier, so he's had plenty of time to think about Chopin since. It shows in this recital, which pairs the Chopin Preludes with works by Brahms and Schumann, played in an impressionistic Chopin style. The set of Preludes is distinctive in the face of abundant competition, which with such popular works, is really saying ...
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Eric Lu became one of the pianists of the moment when he won the Leeds Piano Competition in 2018. He placed highly, as a teenager, at the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw three years earlier, so he's had plenty of time to think about Chopin since. It shows in this recital, which pairs the Chopin Preludes with works by Brahms and Schumann, played in an impressionistic Chopin style. The set of Preludes is distinctive in the face of abundant competition, which with such popular works, is really saying something. Lu takes his Preludes on the slow side, removing what used to be called the potted palm atmosphere from the Prelude in D flat major, Op. 28, No. 15 ("Raindrop"), and giving the piece an almost Debussyan ethereality. The most unusual aspect of the Chopin is that Lu tries to give an arc to the entire set, even varying the silences between pieces; some of them proceed almost attacca to the next prelude. It's not clear what Chopin would have thought of this, but it does retune...
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