The Romanian pianist Radu Lupu, who has died at the age of 76, shot to prominence in the UK when he won the Leeds Piano Competition in 1969, giving an acclaimed Wigmore Hall recital in November of the same year. In fact the Leeds was the third of a series of international piano competitions he won – the others being the Van Cliburn (1966) and the George Enescu International (1967) – though he had remained a student at the Moscow Conservatoire until 1969. It was immediately obvious that a truly exceptional talent had arrived on the scene.
The following year he made the first of his recordings for Decca: solo works by Schubert and Brahms. By now he was firmly established as one of the major pianists of his time, a reputation he was to consolidate as the years went by. What struck listeners from the start was the almost mystical quality of his playing, which was searching, poetic and profoundly responsive to the inner life of the music that seemed to unfold organically as he played.
