The interpretations of pianist Radu Lupu are particularly esteemed by connoisseurs. He was a top recording artist whose career extended from the 1970s to the 2000s.

Lupu was born on November 30, 1945, in Galați in far eastern Romania. His father was an attorney, and his mother was a linguist. Lupu was musical from early childhood and took up the piano at age six. At 12, he gave his debut recital, which featured some of his own compositions. For a time, Lupu considered a career as a composer, but he settled on the piano in his teens. From 1959 to 1961, Lupu attended the Bucharest Conservatory, studying with Florica Musicescu (also the teacher of Dinu Lipatti) and Cella Delavrancea. At 16, he earned a scholarship to the Moscow Conservatory. He studied there for seven years with Galina Eguiazarova, Heinrich Neuhaus, and Stanislav Neuhaus, and he also took lessons from Artur Schnabel's student Maria Curcio. Lupu said that he thought of himself as an autodidact, absorbing insights from conductors as well as pianists. In 1966, he won the first prize at the Van Cliburn Competition in Texas. That would have sufficed to launch Lupu on a high-flying international career, but he preferred to complete his studies in Moscow, which he did in 1969. That year, he won the Leeds Piano Competition in England, and in 1971, he made his recording debut on the Decca label with an album of piano works by Schubert and Brahms.

Lupu remained with Decca until the 1990s, recording for other labels only at the end of his career. He was renowned for his sensitive treatments not only of Brahms and Schubert but also of Schumann and Beethoven, and he was an enthusiastic performer of Mozart and 20th century music. Lupu made his U.S. debut with the Cleveland Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim in 1972; that performance was panned by Harold C. Schonberg of The New York Times, who later became one of Lupu's major supporters. Lupu's New York debut came with the New York Philharmonic in 1974. He subsequently appeared in most major U.S. and European cities. His recordings of Schubert were especially prized, and one -- of the Piano Sonata in B flat major, D. 960, and Piano Sonata in A major, D. 664 -- earned a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance in 1995. Lupu remained active into old age, cutting back on his recording schedule in the 2000s decade but continuing to perform. In 2016, he was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He retired completely in 2019 due to medical issues and died in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 17, 2022. Lupu made more than 35 recordings. ~ James Manheim

Founded in 1904 and therefore the oldest of the city's symphony orchestras, the London Symphony Orchestra became world-renowned for recordings that date back to early gramophone records in 1912. Amid decades of diverse classical programming that followed, including performances for radio and TV, the orchestra also became known for its appearances in numerous film scores, including the Star Wars series. The LSO also tours and first visited North America in 1912 (narrowly avoiding passage on the Titanic).

The ensemble's direct antecedent was the Queen's Hall Orchestra, formed in 1895 for conductor Henry Wood's series of Promenade Concerts. The summer series was so successful that a series of weekly Sunday afternoon concerts was established the same year. The orchestra, however, had never become a permanent group; its members could and often did send other musicians to substitute for them at concerts. In 1904, Wood attempted to end this practice, prompting 46 members to leave and form their own orchestra.

The London Symphony Orchestra was organized as a self-governing corporation administered by a board selected by the players. They arranged for the great Hans Richter to conduct the inaugural concert, and continued to engage a variety of conductors, practically introducing the concept of the guest conductor to the London musical scene. Soon, though, the title and post of principal conductor was established for Richter. The LSO's connection with the BBC goes back to 1924 when Ralph Vaughan Williams conducted the orchestra in the premiere broadcast performance of his Pastoral Symphony. It was the unofficial orchestra in residence for the BBC until the formation of the BBC Symphony in 1930 and continued to broadcast concerts and provide background music for many BBC productions. Other conductors most associated with the orchestra's first few decades include Edward Elgar and Thomas Beecham. During World War II, Wood was welcomed for a series of concerts.

The War took its toll on orchestra membership as it had the general populace, and a concurrent drop in private funding led to increased reliance on the state arts council. This eventually led to structural reorganization in the 1950s, resulting in increased professional standards and the abandonment of profit-sharing; players became salaried employees. The revamped orchestra made only its second tour of the United States in 1963 (the first had been in 1912), and in 1964 embarked on its first world tour. In the mid-1960s the city of London broke ground for the Barbican Arts Centre, intended as the LSO's permanent home. The building was an architectural and acoustic success, and since 1982 has provided the orchestra the solid base it lacked during the first 70-plus years of its existence. The venue opened under principal conductor Claudio Abbado, who took over for André Previn in 1979.

In the meantime, the orchestra made its Star Wars debut, performing John Williams' score for the original 1977 film. While the organization had recorded its first film score in 1935 (H.G. Wells' Things to Come) and appeared in such classics as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and The Sound of Music, Star Wars won three Grammys, an Academy Award, and a BAFTA, among many other accolades, sold over a million copies in the U.S. and over 100,000 in the U.K., and endures as a touchstone in modern film music. The LSO went on to record music for the franchise's entire first two trilogies as well as films like 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1993's Schindler's List, 1997's Titanic, and select installments of the Harry Potter series.

During the tenure of Colin Davis, who was named principal conductor in 1995, the LSO established its own record label, LSO Live. Dvorák's Symphony No. 9, recorded at Barbican Centre in 1999 and released in 2000, bears catalog number 0001. Their 2000 recording of Berlioz's Les Troyens won two Grammys in 2002, and Verdi's Falstaff took home the Best Opera Grammy in 2006. In 2007, Davis took the position of orchestra president, its first since Leonard Bernstein's passing in 1990, and Valery Gergiev became principal conductor.

Also known for crossing over into rock, jazz, and Broadway, among other categories, they followed hit recordings such as Symphonic Rolling Stones and Gershwin Fantasy (with Joshua Bell) with albums like 2017's Someone to Watch Over Me, which had them accompanying archival recordings of Ella Fitzgerald. ~ Marcy Donelson, Joseph Stevenson & Corie Stanton Root

Known as a successful classical conductor, jazz pianist, and composer of jazz, classical, and film music, André Previn frequently bridged the gap between popular and so-called "serious" music, and in doing so broadened the horizons of both. A German-American who fled Nazi Germany with his family in his youth, he went on to win four Academy Awards, all for his work on film musicals in late '50s and '60s, including his adaptation of My Fair Lady (1964). By the '70s, he had established himself as one of the world's leading classical conductors, with terms at the London Symphony Orchestra (1968-1979), Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1976-1984), and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1985-1992). He also served as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1985 to 1989. During his tenure at the LSO, the BBC series André Previn's Music Hour made him household name. All the while, his career-spanning jazz recordings included collaborations with artists such as Benny Carter, Herb Ellis, and Shelly Manne, as well as classical artists including Itzhak Perlman, Leontyne Price, and Kiri Te Kanawa. Winner of ten Grammy Awards, Previn was the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.

A native of Berlin, Previn's father was an accomplished pianist (though a lawyer by profession) and determined that his son would follow in his musical footsteps. The talented young André received instruction on the piano at the Berlin Hochschule, and also absorbed music in a less formal environment during the many private recitals given in the Previn home. In 1938, the Jewish family fled to France where André continued as a scholarship student at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1939, the Previn family relocated to southern California.

Life was difficult for the family (all their possessions had been left behind in Europe, and Previn's father was qualified only in German law), and though barely ten years old, André supplemented the family income by accompanying films at movie houses and playing in jazz clubs. At 14 he started working at MGM (Charles Previn, André's great uncle, was head of music at Universal Studios), orchestrating and arranging film music, and slowly saved enough money to study composition with Castelnuovo-Tedesco. At 18, André was asked to compose his own full-length film score, 1949's The Sun Comes Up, which resulted in his first experience on the podium in front of a real orchestra.

Previn, who had taken U.S. citizenship in 1943, served in San Francisco during the Korean War, where he had the opportunity to study conducting with Pierre Monteux. Following discharge from the army, Previn left MGM, but continued to compose, conduct, and arrange film music throughout the '50s, winning Academy Awards for his score adaptations of Gigi (1958) and Porgy & Bess (1959). He also recorded and released a series of best-selling jazz albums, something he would continue to do sporadically throughout the decades.

In the early '60s, Previn's film scores included such enduring works as Elmer Gantry (1960) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962). Shortly before winning his third and fourth Academy Awards for Irma la Douce (1963) and My Fair Lady (1964), Previn found the courage to abandon Hollywood and pursue his dream of becoming a respected conductor. His professional debut occurred in 1963 with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and he spent the next several years traveling around the country conducting various little-known orchestras in an effort to gain exposure and develop his own skill on the podium. His first big break occurred in 1967 when he was asked to succeed Sir John Barbirolli as music director of the Houston Symphony. When offered the job of principal conductor for the London Symphony Orchestra in 1968, Previn left Houston. During his 11 years with the orchestra (1968-1979), a series of BBC television productions entitled André Previn's Music Hour made the LSO (and Previn) a household name around the world. Other conducting appointments included the Pittsburgh Symphony (1976-1984), the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (1985-1989), and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1985-1992).

Previn readily admitted that he was not driven to compose, doing so mostly by request, but he nevertheless composed a generous quantity of concert music, including a piano concerto for Vladimir Ashkenazy and a cello sonata at the request of Yo-Yo Ma. The year 1998 saw the release of his full-length opera A Streetcar Named Desire at the San Francisco Opera. In 2009, Houston Grand Opera presented his Brief Encounter, based on the 1945 film of the same name and its source material, the Noël Coward play Still Life. That year, Previn's diverse career was celebrated with a series of four concerts at Carnegie Hall in honor of his 80th birthday. A year later, he was presented with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Previn passed away at the end of February 2019.~ Blair Johnston & Marcy Donelson