Lyu, who turns 17 later this month, captivated audiences on Saturday morning with a brilliant rendition of several early Chopin works, including Variations on Là ci darem la mano.
'Chopin of angelic purity'
Music critic Jan Popis wrote that her interpretation "had everything that should be there, conjuring up the image of Chopin as a teenage pianist taking Warsaw by storm—a musician whom everyone called a genius, something he himself didn’t deny in the least."
“How beautifully this young Chinese woman evoked those times with the sounds of the piano—the days when Fryderyk Chopin composed works such as the Variations on Là ci darem,” Popis said in a Facebook post.
“I won’t describe what she played and how, because it simply defied description,” he added.
Born on October 21, 2008, Lyu is studying under Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń at the Poznań Academy of Music in western Poland. She previously trained with Hua Chang at the Middle School affiliated with the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.
Lyu last year won the Ettlingen International Piano Competition in Germany and the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition for Children and Youth in Szafarnia, Poland.
She has performed with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists and the Ningbo Symphony Orchestra and has appeared in concert halls in Asia, Europe and the United States, including New York’s Carnegie Hall and Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts.
Forty pianists from 14 countries—including four from Poland, 14 from China, six from Japan, and three each from South Korea and the United States—took part in the second round in Warsaw.
Each contestant performed a 40- to 50-minute recital featuring Chopin’s preludes, polonaises and other works.
The names of pianists advancing to the third round were expected late on Sunday.
The competition winner will be announced on October 20.
The 17-member jury is chaired by American pianist Garrick Ohlsson and includes Vietnamese pianist Dang Thai Son and Russian Yulianna Avdeeva—all past winners of the Warsaw contest.
Popowa-Zydroń is also among the judges.
First held in 1927, Warsaw's Chopin Competition is one of the world’s most prestigious classical music contests.
Past winners include Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich, Krystian Zimerman, Rafał Blechacz and Bruce Liu.
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Source: TVP Kultura, polskieradio.pl