Do you really want to hear a winner? Are you sure?
mainFrom the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
Eric Lu, 20 years old, won the Leeds International Competition in September. Part of the prize was a debut recording on Warner Classics. Ten years ahead, when his career is hopefully flourishing, I’m not sure Eric will think that was such a great idea….
Read on here.
And here.
Mediocracy rules! Eric Lu’s over-hyped. I walked out on his San Francisco recital. Puzzled by his winning Leeds.
Maybe you’re puzzled because there’s something the judges see that you don’t. But keep walking out . . . sniff, sniff.
I was puzzled to see him in Chopin competition finals, but his teacher was in jury.
No need to be puzzled: the scores from each Chopin Competition jury member were published on line.
Too bad Chopin Competition jury members aren’t allowed to vote for their students.
Dumbass…
That’s exactly how Andras Schiff affects me; I find his playing boring and unadventurous beyond belief. And his political utterances equally tiresome.
…says a Sydney housewife.
ich lach mich tot!
There is nothing to separate him from hundreds of others
in aiming for a piece of the money pie.Leeds should be
ashamed of themselves, one suspects in recording him
there is a buck to be made for various reasons
and he will probably be tossed aside him once the cash cow does not deliver.
This recording wasn’t Eric’s idea. Let’s put the blame where it belongs – in the hands of Warner Classics & the Leeds Competition. Putting a 20 year old contest winner on a major label is the kiss of death; however well-meaning these organizations may be, they are blind-sighted by their own arrogance in believing that whoever wins is automatically a genius who is fully prepared for worldwide recognition. Let’s wish Mr. Lu well, and hope that he doesn’t become a victim of his victory.
“Blind-sighted”? Is that supposed to be a play on words? Or did you mean blindsided (which hardly applies)?
Pollini’s early recordings are among his best. I may not be alone in thinking so. Then again, Pollini is probably the exception.
he’s not alone, many of his chopin stones colleagues are even worse
Yes, a pianist has to be pretty terrible to win the Chopin competition, LOL.
Bravo I agree
… I’m tired of hearing over and over again about the “winners” and how they deserved or did not deserve to win. This envy culture that focuses on the lives/careers of the “winners” is making it hard for me to enjoy a personal relationship to classical music.
May I suggest that you focus on the music you like instead of the performers?
It would probably be more productive for Tom to just stop reading this blog (or at least most of the comments), now that he knows what kind of stuff gets posted here.
Two thoughts occurred to me simultaneously:
(1) As I said somewhere on here recently, all any competition can do is help the winner(s) get a foot in the door. Look at the list of winners & finalists from any big competition — Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Leeds, Queen Elisabeth, Van Cliburn — and you will find a number of famous players and a number of people you’ve never heard of. Who knows why some of the non-famous ones are not famous now. There can be all kinds of reasons.
(2) If Eric Lu is 20 years old, then he has plenty of time to grow. If he does develop, people may come back to this recording and claim to hear the seeds of genius — or they may say “his early recordings are not great, but so what?” Or general opinion in the future might declare Norman to be wrong.
(3) I seem to remember that the Van Cliburn competition used to release a recording of the winner’s final-round performance. As I recall, Andre-Michel Schub (winner in 1981) was actually not happy with his performance and didn’t want the recording released. Anyway, an “instant record” of a competition winner is not that unusual. Back in the early 80’s, I found recordings of Argerich and Pollini’s winning performances from the Chopin competition in the discount bin at Tower Records in Seattle.