American pianist wins Chopin competition

Eric Lu in the final round of the 19th Chopin Competition in Warsaw.

You know who will take credit for this if anyone tells him it happened. For the first time since 1970, an American pianist has won the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, which has taken place in Warsaw, Poland fairly regularly for almost a century (with an obvious break for World War II).

In the final round of the competition, Eric Lu, a 27-year-old from Massachusetts, had the air of a chess grandmaster about to play for the title of world champion. Like the other finalists this year, he had to play Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasy in A-flat major, Opus 61, as the Warsaw Philharmonic musicians stood by with their instruments. It’s a piece I am not familiar with.

After that, Lu took a little break while the orchestra tuned up. Then he came back onstage, followed by conductor Andrzej Boreyko. For this part, he had two choices, one of the two piano concertos Chopin wrote. Lu chose No. 2 in F minor, Opus 21, even though historical pattern suggested No. 1 was a better choice to win. I haven’t been able to verify that Lu is only the second pianist to win with this choice, the first being his former teacher Đặng Thái Sơn in 1980, before Lu was even born.

This video is from October 18. I’m not sure if he was the last finalist to perform, but I certainly would have expected the winner wouldn’t have been announced right away.

The chairman of the competition jury was American pianist Garrick Ohlsson, the Garrick Ohlsson who won in 1970.

But juror Piotr Paleczny has filed a dissenting opinion, saying Tianyao Lyu from China should have won instead, according to Norman Lebrecht. Blogging for Gramophone, Jed Distler wasn’t completely won over by either of them, or apparently any of the finalists.

Unlike other winners, Eric Lu already had an impressive career going in. The discography on his website boasts four professional albums, three of them with Warner Classics and two of them featuring orchestral accompaniment.