Chopin still reigns supreme in Bruce Liu’s Tanglewood recital

The Canadian pianist Bruce Liu, who rose to fame in 2021 as the winner of the 18th Chopin competition, predictably centered his Ozawa Hall recital around the works of Chopin, the composer with whom he is most closely associated at this point in his career. At the same time, he attempted to demonstrate that his musical interests extend well beyond the Romantic repertory.

Arranging his programme in chronological order, Liu commenced with six selections from several of Rameau’s Suites de Pièces de Clavecin. He didn’t try to reproduce the 18th century harpsichord sound on the modern piano; on the contrary, he employed the pedal without too many restrictions. As a result, despite the pianist’s pearly technique and his endeavors to introduce varied ornamentation during the repeats, the contrasts between the little musical gems were not as pronounced as they could have been. While the delicate rondeau Les Tendres Plaintes effectively conveyed a sense of melancholy and longing, the ironic undertones of the imaginative barn scene, La Poule, were somehow subdued. If the two Minuets were imbued with a delightful simplicity, the variations in the Gavotte et six doubles sounded a tad monotonous. Furthermore, Les Sauvages wasn’t whimsical enough.

At the other extreme of the chronological spectrum, Nikolai Kapustin’s composition, Variations, Op.41, a successful graft of jazz idioms on an often-used classical framework, was, in Liu’s rendition, full of frothy effervescence and forward momentum. His fingers effortlessly navigated the intricate twists and turns of the six jazzy variations unfolding in a continuous stream from a theme inspired by the opening bassoon motif from Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps. Unfettered by any technical concerns, the pianist seemed to enjoy playing every phrase, from intertwining free-floating right-hand twirls over the left-hand ostinatos to syncopated, striking chords emerging out of nowhere, to the quasi-Romantic minor-key Larghetto preceding the lightning-fast bursts of energy in the final variation. The excitement almost transformed Liu physically: his body language became that of an insouciant jazz musician!

Approaching Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata, Liu seemed to be more concerned with the overall soundscape and different timbral combinations than with the music’s structural evolution. With all three movements beautifully emerging from pianissimos, there was little sense of an overall propulsive arch that starts from the outset of the Allegro con Brio and ends with the Prestissimo coda. The Adagio had mystery, but one could barely glimpse from there the Elysian Fields of the Allegretto Moderato. There is little doubt that this pianist can faultlessly play any passage at any speed. Nevertheless, the beginning of the first movement felt too hurried, with the dialogue between various points of departure and arrival properly balanced only during the mighty development.

Any doubts about an over-hyped young pianist came to rest when listening to his Chopin interpretations. Between the Trois Nouvelles Études’ chromatic excursions and a deeply sensitive Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. posth. (the evening’s sole encore), the audience was treated to a captivating version of the Piano Sonata no. 2 in B flat minor. As much as Schumann was unhappy with the sonata’s lack of cohesion, this rendition was defined by remarkable moments: the bass line modulating the harmonic structure in the first movement, the cello-warmth evoking melody of the Trio, the Funeral March performed with neither pathos nor detachment, or the eerie quality of the whispered pianissimo in the Finale.