lupu's playing has garnered admiration not only from music critics, but also by fellow major artists. mitsuko uchida told humphrey burton in a 2002 bbc radio 3 interview that "there is nobody on earth who can actually get certain range of colour, and also the control - don't underestimate this unbelievable control of his playing." nikolai lugansky said in an interview that lupu "possesses the rare power of letting the music speak for itself", and andrás schiff stated that lupu has the "rare gift to illuminate anything that he plays with rare musical intelligence". other pianists who have expressed admiration for lupu or cite him as an inspiration in their music-making include emanuel ax, daniel barenboim, seong-jin cho (who named lupu's recording of the schubert impromptus as his favorite), kirill gerstein, stephen hough, robert levin, maria joão pires, and daniil trifonov. in addition, the conductor yannick nézet-séguin cites lupu as an inspiration while he was a piano student, saying that listening to recitals and recordings by lupu "shaped my conception of sound from a very young age", and the cellist steven isserlis called him "one of the greatest artists i have ever heard or known".