Deserved Victory – ‘The Financial Times’ reviews Eric Lu’s recordings

On January 12th, The Financial Times published an extensive review of two new albums by Eric Lu, winner of last year’s Chopin Competition. Critic Richard Fairman carefully listens to the American pianist’s recently released albums by Deutsche Grammophon and Warner Classics – featuring live recordings of Lu’s Chopin interpretations from the Competition and a studio recording of Franz Schubert’s Impromptus, Op. 90 and Op. 142, respectively.

‘Eric Lu’s controversial Chopin Piano Competition win was deserved. A live recording and a new recital disc reveal the elegance of sound that ultimately won him first prize in Warsaw’, states Fairman. Describing the details of the competition recordings, he writes, among other things, about ‘moonlit stillness to underlying passions’ melding in Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1, and about the “exemplary performance of the Sonata No 2 in B Flat Minor,” which ‘bears out [John] Allison’s [music critic and juror of the 19th Chopin Competition] judgment that Lu’s playing of the two mature Chopin’s sonatas were “interpretatively high points” of the competition.’

 Eric Lu’s recordings from Warsaw, acclaimed by The Financial Times and published on the DG album, are complemented by a selection of his other competition interpretations of Chopin’s works released as part of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute’s Blue Series. This latter album includes, among others, a recording of the Third Sonata in B minor and the final performance of the Concerto in F minor, conducted by Andrzej Boreyko and accompanied by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.