Interview with Eric Lu for the Chopin Courier

CHOPIN COURIER: How do you define truth of interpretation in music, and is there anything like one musical truth in an interpretation, or does it change? Can you have many musical truths? 

ERIC LU: I think there’s definitely no one musical truth. It’s impossible to quantify, even if I feel, ‘OK, this performance of this piece is my absolute favorite overall of the piece’, that doesn’t, in my opinion, make it the truth of this work. I think that’s what makes music so great – it’s art. So, it’s completely abstract. It’s completely fluid. It’s completely dependent on one’s own personality, one’s own journey in life, one’s own journey with a particular piece or a particular composer. 

And then it’s completely different depending on the person – [whether] you ask the audience member as well as the performer. But in terms of what I try to strive for, of course, is maybe my own truth, my own feelings of what makes a piece great, what is the essence of the music, the emotional journey of it, as well as the emotions that it might evoke, and the content of it as well – I mean, such as when it was written in […] the composer’s life, all these things. So, I try to keep that in mind. 

But of course, also, you cannot divorce your own personality from what you play. It’s nature. Your nature shows through your music. And I think that’s always the case, for any performer. So, whether it’s a maybe more successful performance, or less successful, whatever… one’s own nature is in everything one plays. 

C.C.: You’ve develped a reat deal as a musician for the past ten years. Since you were here for the first time, do you remember any moments of revelation –when something about your understanding of Chopin changed, or you when heard somebody play something in a different way? 

E.L.: I don’t think […] I would point to one specific revelation. Of course, being I here ten years agoreally started my career. I was able to play concerts for the first time in my life after that, and then once you start performing this music […]. So I think, those experiences helped me get deeper into this composer, as well as, of course, my own growing up. Life happens, and so my experiences with other composers that I love, such as Schubert, or Mozart, or Beethoven. 

So then of course, the pianists’ life – they have to have many different composers in their repertoire, and you try your best to grow with each one, and [also] with Chopin, I think… because it’s not that I’ve been playing constantly, consistently only him for ten years; I think if that happened, it would be unhealthy. […] This journey of coming back to him – and I come back to him on a very regular basis, I would say more than with any other composer, so I’m constantly putting him in my programs, not the whole recital, but at least one piece, and often a big piece, such as a sonata – so I think this journey growing with him over time is so special and something you cannot really describe. 
I don’t really try to make any changes intentionally. I don’t actively do it. […] Inevitably, there have been changes, but I would prefer that to happen naturally rather than I want to show something different. I think it’s not organic that way. 

C.C.: Life has changed a lot in the two hundred years since Chopin was born. What you think is still relevant in his music for people who live nowadays? 

E.L.: You’re right, the world has completely changed, but you can see how many people love Chopin, if you look at the numbers on YouTube and whatever, right? I think there’s something really special about this person’s music: it connects so much with the human psyche, human emotion on a very direct level. […] He just goes straight to you. […] Even if someone does not fully comprehend the complexions of some of his works, they like it, they love it, and they like to hear it. And it makes them feel something; it makes them connect with their own personal life, whatever happened – events in their own life. 
And I think that is what makes great art, and what makes great art so relevant today and forever. Despite the world completely changing, human beings are still human beings; human nature is still human nature. It […] doesn’t change. I think that is why Chopin is so relevant 200 years later.