Germany Various: Bruce Liu (piano). Performance of 28.4.2024 broadcast as live (directed by Bernhard Fleischer) from Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr, Bochum on Stage+, 6.7.2024. (ES-S)
Haydn – Sonata No.32 in B minor, Hob.XVI:32
Chopin – Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.35
Kapustin – Variations, Op.41
Beethoven – Sonata No.18 in E-flat major, Op.31/3 ‘The Hunt’
Prokofiev – Sonata No.7 in B-flat major, Op.83
Encores:
Satie – Gnossienne No.3
Chopin – Waltz in D-flat major, Op.64 No.1 ‘Minute Waltz’
Canadian pianist Bruce Liu rose to fame in 2021 when he won first prize at the International Chopin Competition. Several months later, he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Since his victory in Warsaw, he has been performing on stages around the world, both as a soloist with orchestras and as a recitalist. Despite his unqualified successes, Liu modestly declared in a recent interview with Katrin Zagrosek, the director of the Ruhr Piano Festival, that ‘what happened in Warsaw takes a lot of years to digest’.
The program Liu assembled for his Bochum recital provided great insight into his evolving path. It was undoubtedly demanding, featuring four compositions in sonata form that spanned nearly two centuries and various styles. Each choice was remarkable on its own. However, the pianist did not convey the impression that the order of presentation, which was not strictly chronological, held any particular significance in establishing novel or interesting connections among the works.
He began with Haydn’s Sonata No.32 in B minor, deftly illuminating both the Baroque-inspired rhythmic intensity and the way melodical snippets foreshadow a Romantic impulse. The Menuet was elegant and transparent, the contrasting Trio emphatic, while the Presto finale was a showcase of the pianist’s brilliantly light touch and technical agility.
Bruce Liu’s approach to Chopin’s music clearly contributed to his success at the Warsaw competition. For him, instead of melancholy and spleen, passion and volatility are the primary traits characterizing the compositions of the Polish bard. Interpreting the Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor, he turned what Robert Schumann once criticized as lack of cohesion into a merit, adopting a different approach for each of the parts. The expressiveness of the melodic lines in the first movement was never overly emphasized, while the harmony-altering bass line consistently propelled the music forward. An often mysterious-sounding Scherzo embraced a Trio whose theme seemed to be rendered by a cello. The Marche funèbre floated between emotion and detachment. The Finale, performed flawlessly, was a tad overly luminous, yet the pianissimos still conveyed a sense of eeriness.
After Chopin, Liu inserted a caesura into his series of sonatas, a move both peculiar and explainable. It was peculiar because Kapustin’s Variations Op.41 diverges significantly from the sonata forms considered elsewhere in the recital, even those where the rules of the canon were not strictly enforced. It was also odd to hear the jovial jig somehow sneak in under the lingering auditory mantle of Chopin’s Marche funèbre. At the same time, placing the piece next to the well-known masterpiece made sense, as Liu is a strong believer in the improvisational character of Chopin’s compositions. Similar to jazz, they should sound quite different each time they are rendered. A great jazz music lover, Liu played with effervescence all these variations, based on a theme inspired by the opening bassoon motif from Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps. Unencumbered by any technical considerations, he explored all the twists and turns of the score with childlike amazement, bringing out a free-floating right hand over the left hand’s ostinato here, and syncopated rhythmic patterns competing with a quasi-Romantic pathos there.
Beethoven’s Sonata No.18 similarly brims with exuberance. Liu effectively captured Beethoven’s obvious yet not always convincing humor in this transitional sonata. Haydnesque reminiscences were plentiful. The third movement evoked the image of a child suddenly becoming serious amidst his toys, and the Presto finale was rambunctious.
Prokofiev’s Sonata No.7, one of his so-called ‘War Sonatas’, stands as one of the greatest piano scores of the twentieth century, a model of imbuing traditional forms with modernist elements. Bruce Liu performed it with irreproachable virtuosity. However, one had the impression of hearing it through a veil which did not obscure the sounds but rather the interpreter’s own thoughts vis-à-vis what the music aims to convey and the historical backdrop against which Prokofiev created it. The sense of terror and nervousness in the first movement, Allegro inquieto, and the sharp, satirical edges of the Precipitato toccata seemed somewhat smoothed over. The sentimentality and irony in the Andante caloroso did not always combine well, replaced instead with a less defined middle ground. Certainly, Bruce Liu’s interpretation(s) will only benefit from greater maturity and additional life experience.
Liu returned to his beloved Chopin for a delicate encore, the ‘Minute Waltz’, preceded by another subtle miniature with its own Chopinesque charm, Satie’s Gnossienne No.3.
Edward Sava-Segal