Tag Archives: Eric Lu

SCO / Bancroft

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City Halls, Glasgow

Eric Lu is not what you’d call the most exuberant of interpreters. The young American-born pianist, who rocketed to international fame as winner of the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition at the age of only 20, is an artist who applies consideration before panache. We witnessed this two years ago when he played a cool Chopin with the BBC SSO. 

That’s not to say his Grieg Piano Concerto with the SCO on Friday lacked showmanship – after which, in any case, his flashy Chopin encore dispelled any doubts lingering in that direction. And where superlative bravado did surface in the Grieg it did so with mindful and inter-relational context. There was much poetic reflection where others settle for sustained urgency.

If this introduced a certain ambivalence to the performance, giving us becalmed episodes in the outer movements where Lu’s reluctance to push the music forward had a questionable tendency to counter its natural momentum, it also offered flecks of insight into the concerto’s inner charm. 

Under American conductor Ryan Bancroft (a one-time Leverhulme Conducting Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) the SCO unveiled gems of orchestral detail that so often get lost in the wash. When, for instance, has the central Adagio ever sounded so timeless, the strings patiently teasing out the opening theme with subliminal warmth, over which Lu’s pianism emerged in a liberated (if not completely flawless) flow of self-expression. 

Where the opening movement bore faltering momentum, the Finale enjoyed a more convincing exuberance, its breezy rusticity imbued with a modicum of wistfulness that further stamped this performance with distinctiveness of its own. 

The overall programme theme was Nordic, a happy coincidence in the wake of last week’s Nordic Music Days festival. Before the Norwegian sounds of Grieg came Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi’s Lucioles, a short work from 2011 that translates an evocative haiku describing a lake illuminated by fireflies by French writer François JJ Ribes into a vivid impressionistic soundscape. Swarms of orchestral density are shot through with darting flecks of solo instrumentation, which Bancroft engineered with delicate and shimmering precision. A pity about the unanswered mobile phone that antagonised and outlived the final stillness.

As SCO violinist Aisling O’Dea suggested in her thoughtful spoken introduction to the concert, there was a literal sense of journey implicit in this programme, where the final destination was Finland and Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony, famous for its radiant Swan Hymn and an ending that keeps you guessing as to which repeated chord is actually the last.

As with the Grieg, it took time to truly establish its persona. The impatient gathering of motives that mark the opening lacked bite and anticipation, leaving the first movement a little short of conviction. That changed instantly with the slow movement where Bancroft established a neat combination of edgy but delicate persistence, homing in on the Mahler influences that colour its wilder moments. The Finale delivered in literal terms but lacked that necessary coating of wonderment. The final chords, touched by a perceivable anxiety, echoed that matter-of-factness.

 Ken Walton

This programme is repeated in Aberdeen Music Hall on Sat 9 Nov.
Andrea Tarrodi’s Serenade in Seven Colours is available on the SCO’s Digital Series from 10 Nov – 10 Dec. See www.sco.org.uk for details.

BBC SSO / Muñoz

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City Halls, Glasgow

Despite the last-minute change of conductor and soloist, it was heartening to witness a decent-sized audience at the City Halls, the first in a long time for the BBC SSO, and the sense of occasion and excitement such numbers duly generate. That the programme – music by Clyne, Chopin and Bartok – had a drawing power of its own easily mitigated the change of personnel. Even so, conductor Tito Muñoz (in for Joana Carneiro) and pianist Eric Lu (replacing the advertised Russian soloist, Zlata Chochieva) brought their own distinguished qualities to the performances.

Muñoz, the current long-standing music director of the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra in his native America, made his mark in an instant. He’s a no-nonsense conductor, with a whip-like beat that immediately pulled us into the murky world of Anna Clyne’s high-energy This Midnight Hour. 

The composer – an Edinburgh University graduate most recently known to Scots through her stint as associate composer of the SCO – calls it “a visual journey expressed in sound”. In that respect, its cinematic flow – a restlessly unceasing soundtrack to what could easily be an imaginary film noir – is self-explanatory. The frenetic narrative changes gear at the drop of a hat – adrenalin-charged propulsion gives way to smoky cabaret ballad gives way to hymn-like calmness – but there’s rarely a moment’s breath en route.

Muñoz nailed every change of tempo and mood with resolute insistence and conviction. It was perhaps a mistake to ask the two onstage trumpeters to step out of the orchestra at such a quiet point in the score and make their way up to the rear gallery for a final offstage coup de théâtre. It provided an unnecessary distraction, even if the final result was thrilling.

Fellow American Eric Lu’s performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1 immediately reduced the temperature. His first bold entry signalled an approach that favoured care over caution, and indeed, what followed was a deliberately contained exposé that steered clear of effusive gesture or extrovert indulgence, instead harnessing the natural energy of Chopin’s writing and allowing its filigree meanderings to speak instinctively for themselves. 

Where the opening movement enjoyed limitless free-flowing pianism set against a robust structural framework, the slow movement shone a more intimate, nocturnal spotlight on the young Lu – it’s only four years since the 24-year-old won the Leeds International Piano Competition – only to be thrust aside by the rhapsodic delights of the finale.

The focus shifted back to Muñoz and the SSO for the closing work in the programme, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, and one of the 20th century’s most virtuosic orchestral masterpieces. The symmetrical relevance to Clyne’s opening work was not lost, once again dark features, sardonic references and blazing euphoria variously at play. 

Muñoz’s pacing was masterfully gauged, moulding the organic volcanism of the opening movement, the pithy playfulness of the scherzo, the eery “night music” of the Elegia, the edgy lampooning of Shostakovich in the Intermezzo, and the whirling finale into one glorious aural spectacle. He certainly had the SSO playing their best so far this season.

Ken Walton 

Available to listen to on BBC Sounds