So the last few days I've been listening to any live Lupu performance in terrible sound I can get my hands on. Lupu was already a favorite, but he was just another favorite. But now I've been absolutely transfixed on a level I've never been. THIS is the Lupu about which everybody voices awe.
Of course the famous studio stuff is great, but it's also flawed and peculiar in a way nobody talks about. It always reminded me of Emil Gilels's famous recordings - the moments of greatness and mastery were always somehow interrupted, and there was a weird bipolarity between the quiet intimacy and the loud virtuosity that often have little to do with each other. Yes, of course the quiet touch is exactly as masterly as everybody talks about, but there's a reason everybody talks about that and not about his loud playing, which often sounds as though he's playing another piece.
But live is not that. Live is never that. This is like all my very favorite artists (not necessarily the greatest, just favorites): this is Kubelik and Busch and Monteux and Fricsay, this is Moisewitch and Solomon and Firkusny and Cherkassky. What we're hearing is 'risk management.' It is the ability to take the most astonishing risks in the moment of performance, and seemingly land every one of them with a quantum level of control. I have no idea how it's done, but everything is simultaneously spontaneous and planned, controlled and yet soaring with absolute freedom.
My late 'best musical friend' Mark Beaulieu would occasionally sing the praises of Abbado, a love I never shared. He said that in live circumstances, Abbado's the mixture of control and spontaneity was like 'tracing how water moves on a flower pedal.' That's exactly how I felt hearing Mariss Jansons in concert. Everything always felt spontaneous in performance, and yet millions of details came out in the most incontrovertible inevitability. But that seems to be Lupu's level of performance awareness, and it is the most enlivening feeling in musical performance.
Listen to this D. 960. I never thought I could tire of this piece, but I've listened to it so many times at this point I'm almost sick of it. I thought I've become exhausted by it and couldn't find a pianist who'd give me anything more in it. Objectively speaking, the pianist who comes closest to my conception of this piece is Curzon. I love Firkusny, I love Brendel, I love Schnabel and Kempff, de Larrocha, Badura-Skoda, Kovacevich, Schiff, and of course, Lupu...
But here it is. A performance that tells me this piece is about something different than I thought it was. Leaving aside all of Curzon's obvious ability with color, what I appreciate about Curzon above all the others is the 'comedy.' This work is every bit as serious as we think it is, but real seriousness includes fun. In Curzon, you almost hear the burlesque house in the outer movements, and for once, Curzon is a pianist who does the scherzo at a real landler tempo. When I hear Curzon, I think of Beethoven's 4th symphony, a comedy with constant dark interruptions. Curzon's Schubert meets death with smiles.
But for once, here is a performance that is truly everything people say D. 960 is about. Here is Alex Ross's 'trill of death.' Under Lupu live, this is truly a poem about death. You feel the sickness, you feel the terror, you feel the depression, you feel the anger, you feel the compassion and forgiveness and peace. It meets Curzon's smiles with frowns, and if Curzon gives a perfect etching of Schubert planned from the outside, Lupu illuminates it from within with light from heaven.
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