Name: Recital: Eric Lu Plays Schubert, Mozart, Chopin
Start: 2023-08-19T19:30:00
Location: Aspen Meadows Resort

Eric Lu

Aspen Music Festival

Winner of the 2018 Leeds competition and recipient of the 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Eric Lu is becoming a major force in the piano world. After his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut last October, Chicago Classical Review said he “played with a maturity beyond his 24 years,” and WTTW Chicago praised his “remarkable fluidity and [] touch that was at once crystal clear and sublimely expressive. Lu’s playing was absolutely stunning and brought fresh life to a familiar work.” Lu has a special affinity for Schubert, saying, “It is difficult to describe how meaningful his music is to me. He was the ultimate artist, in the purest sense of the word. Late in his life, with death staring him down and all his hopes and dreams dashed … he continued to churn out one masterpiece after another. I have come to the conclusion that he is the composer who moves me most intensely.” Lu will play Schubert’s first piano sonata, which remained unfinished and shows influences of Mozart and Beethoven. Mozart reserved use of the minor key for his most dramatic outpourings Out of over 600 works, only 30 were in the minor key. These included the A minor piano sonata, written around the time of his mother’s illness and death. In a letter to his father, he wrote, “I have indeed suffered and wept enough – but what did it avail?” Mozart’s despair can be heard in this beautifully dark piece. Chopin’s third and final piano sonata overflows with melodic inventiveness and is one of his most difficult works, both technically and musically. Discover the artistry of Eric Lu, dubbed “a veritable poet of the keyboard” by The Guardian.