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The Glow of a Young Pianist New York
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
01/24/2025 -
Peter Ilych Tcbaikovsky: The Seasons, Opus 37 – Swan Lake, Opus 20: “Dance of the Four Swans” (arr. Earl Wild)
Alexander Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 4 in F‑Sharp Minor, Opus 30
Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 7 in B‑flat Major, Opus 83
Bruce Liu (Pianist) 
B. Liu (© Courtesy of the Artist)
“In a light mist, transparent vapor
Lost afar and yet distinct
A star gleams softly.
“How beautiful! The bluish mystery
Of her glow
Beckons me, cradles me.
“O bring me to thee, far distant star!
Bathe me in trembling rays
Sweet light!”
Alexander Scriabin, poem written as preface to his Fourth Piano Sonata
Talk about citizen of the world! Bruce Liu, was born in Paris of Chinese parents, growing up in Montréal, winner of the 2021 Polish Chopin Competition! So Mr. Liu ignored his history and gave an all‑Russian program last night to a full‑house audience in Carnegie Hall.
Not the blazoning music of a Mussorgsky or Balakirev. And while Scriabin was offered, this was the ethereal quasi-Impressionistic composer. No, the first three‑quarters of this enchanting performance showed Mr. Liu with a Chopin sensibility. His technique was perfect, we had a lyrical fluidity, and finally, an intelligence which understood the 19th Century late Romantic sensibility.
He started both halves with six sections from Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons (which obviously should have been called The Months). Nor was their any reason not to divide them. Like a serial in the old Saturday Evening Post, the composer was commissioned to write a single piece for twelve consecutive months.
This, then, was not Tchaikovsky the moody mournful genius. This, under Mr. Liu’s fingers, gave us twelve tiny gems. He gave us a comfortable fireside in January, a naive (in the best sense) of the February carnival–the same carnival that Stravinsky pictured in Petrouchka. All the way to May, he gave us dreams and reflection.
In the second half, we went from the warmth of July to an August performance dazzling piano work. This all the way to the November troika, and that so simple ending with December.
These were personal interpretations. Much rubato, much feeling. Perhaps not with force or verve when needed (like February), but possessing an honest pleasure.
We had two unexpected works cusping on–if not fulfilling–a jazz. Bruce Liu hardly has Trifonov’s jazzy sensibility. But the always unexpected Earl Wild fixed up Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Four Swans” with some minor jazzy measures, taken easily by Mr. Liu. And for the fourth–the fourth!–of his encores, he gave a nice ragtime beat to Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf.
Scriabin’s Fourth Piano Sonata possesses–as one can read in the composer’s poem above–the flavor of a dream, and Mr. Liu gave an effortless performance. Perhaps too effortless. Alexander Scriabin’s dreams are less imagistic, more mystical. The mysticism of Russian sages, which bounded from the chthonic underworld to the blazing sun.
Mr. Liu was hardly slumbering in the first movement, yet those so beautiful fingers were weaving a somnolent spell, a spell which, with no break tore into a supernatural second movement.
Once again, we were summoned to the sheer beauty of his playing. This was Scriabin’s cosmic dance. Mr. Liu played it as a breathless, light‑winged pianist’s dance. It was delightful, a solace which rarely reached the occult.
Give the 28-year-old artist a few years, and he will into Scriabin’s mystical (if not alcoholic/drug‑filled) mystical realms.
The finale–a finale which inevitably brings any audience to its feet–was Prokofiev’s “Stalingrad” Seventh Sonata. When played by certain great (and usually Russian) artists, that first movement bangs with drums and cannons in the first movement, with accents on the inquieto of Allegro inquieto. The final Precipato toccata should reach the cliff’s edge.
Neither direction was quite up to Bruce Liu’s experience. One heard less the agony of wartime as the accuracy of fine piano playing. Nothing fazed his fingers, his liquidity or a single note in this spectacular work. Yet nothing reached the torment of the war which the composer experienced after his return to the Soviet Union.
Mr. Liu was again, mature and artistic enough for a nigh‑perfect performance. Soon ineluctably, he will understand the soul beneath the skin.
Harry Rolnick
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