george xiaoyuan fu

TRIO ZIMBALIST: Piano Trios of Weinberg, Auerbach, & Dvořák

January 12, 2024

Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice

Trio Zimbalist’s debut album of piano trios by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Lera Auerbach, and Antonín Dvořák is cast in the spirit of the Dumka, containing works composed under the shadows of troubled and traumatic political histories.

MIRRORS

November 11, 2022

2024 BBC Music Magazine Newcomer Award Winner

Works by Andres, Chin, Dutilleux, Ravel, Rachmaninov, Tailleferre, Waley-Cohen

5 STARS FROM BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE: Ravel’s Miroirs is the starting point for this keyboard essay, and it’s all rather breathtaking. Fu’s approach is intelligent but fuelled by a deep emotion and understanding of the repertoire (here both old and new); his touch on the keys is barely apparent in the Ravel, with the music flowing gossamer-like.

International Piano Magazine: Each movement of Ravel’s epoch defining Miroirs finds an echo in later pieces. Interleaving the music in this way offers an enhanced appreciation of Ravel’s importance in the musical continuum. For example, a beautiful performance of ‘Noctuelles’ and a haunting ‘Oiseaux tristes’ are followed by the Dutilleux prelude ‘Le jeu des contraires’, which prolongs the atmosphere while emphasising retrogrades and inversions… Chin’s Ligeti-influenced Etude is a fiery toccata, rendered here with supreme confidence… Fu’s fluent and nuanced ‘Barque’ is one of the finest available, his ‘Alborada’ joyous.

Gramophone: Musicality and intelligence govern George Xiaoyuan Fu’s programming agenda, resulting in a genuinely interesting rather than gimmicky playlist… Fu’s precise fingerwork cannot be faulted, and his gift for programme-building deserves serious attention.