Radu Lupu - Schumann: Humoreske, Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana (1996)

This marvelous disc won all sorts of international awards when it was first issued a few years ago, and with good reason. Radu Lupu is a very special pianist. He doesn't record all that often, and he doesn't appear in concert all that frequently, either, owing to his reluctance to travel. He has long been regarded as one of the supreme interpreters of Schubert, but he is equally persuasive in this Schumann recital. He brings to this music his typically gentle, lovely piano tone, an acute sensitivity to the music's many moods, and most important of all, that sense of innocence and romantic poetry that gives Schumann's music its uniqueness. A great recording. -- David Hurwitz

As piano playing this disc has an aristocratic distinction reminiscent of Lipatti. As music-making it's underpinned by unselfconscious intuition, making you feel you're discovering the truth of the matter for the first time. It's difficult to recall a more revealing performance of Schumann's Humoreske. Lupu captures all the unpredictability of its swift-changing moods while at the same time imparting a sense of inevitability to the sequence as a whole. Florestan's caprice is as piquant as Eusebius's tenderness is melting.Yet there's an underlying unity in the diversity from Lupu, enhanced by most beautifully timed and shaded 'links'. Goodness knows how long this work has been in his repertory. But here it emerges with the keen edge of new love.
Next, Kinderszenen: simplicity is its keynote. To begin with (as notably in the opening 'Von fremden Ländern und Menschen') you wonder if, in rejection of sentimentality, he might not be allowing himself enough time for wide-eyed wonderment. But you're soon won over by his limpid tonal palette and the sheer purity of his phrasing. Each piece tells its own magical little tale without the slightest trace of special pleading. Such pristine grace will never pall, however often heard.
Kreisleriana in its turn offers rich contrasts of desperation, dedication and Hoffmannesque drollery. And except, perhaps, in the impetuous No 7 (taken dangerously fast), it brings further reminders that we're in the presence of a master pianist – among so much else able to rejoice in this work's endless dialogues between left hand and right with his opulent bass and gleaming treble. Reproduction is totally faithful throughout. -- Gramophone