Montrealer Bruce Liu, who has become an international star since his victory at the Warsaw Chopin Competition in October 2021, opens the Orchester Métropolitain season on Saturday alongside Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In a few weeks his next album will be released by Deutsche Grammophon, The duty had the privilege of listening firsthand. A reunion with an endearing artist, whose full scope we are far from having really perceived.
In Warsaw, in 2021, Bruce Liu is undoubtedly the one we didn’t see coming. But from the first round, the jury’s scores, published after the competition, showed that he had been, from start to finish, almost unanimous and in the lead. Since his victory, in a context of a musical life which is slowly finding its feet, Bruce Liu has been on his merry way. But, here too, we are betting that the musical world has not yet seen anything, because the artistic result is very often a step above what we expected.
The world of the concerto
Seeing Bruce Liu on Facebook last May posing next to Rafael Payare backstage at the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, we were curious to listen, thanks to the excellent Californian web radio station Classical KDFC, to our pianist tackling a repertoire that we never heard him play: the 3e Concerto by Beethoven. Great surprise at the distinction and finesse of his interpretation.
However, the meeting was impromptu. “It was a very special concert since I replaced Hilary Hahn, who was to play the Violin Concerto by Brahms, and I found out about it the day before. Obviously, the first choice was the Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini by Rachmaninov, which I had already performed with Rafael Payare at the Classical Spree in 2022. But this work was already scheduled for the San Francisco season. The second choice was one of Chopin’s concertos. But that’s not Rafael’s thing. We had a few hours to decide and with A hero’s lifes of Strauss in 2e part, Rafael said to me: “Any of the Beethoven concertos”. I had played the 3e Concerto in March in Germany. I said, “Let’s do this!” »
Before March 2023, Bruce had only tackled this concerto once, in 2016. “I missed the Beethoven year (2020) a little because of the pandemic which shook up everything. » The pianist therefore really wanted to make up for it. Beethoven (next step, the 2e Concerto) is one of the areas where it may have surprises in store for us.
In the Rachmaninov chapter, the 2e Concerto that he will play at the Maison symphonique Saturday evening is, with the Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini, one of two orchestral works by the composer that Bruce has in his repertoire. He has already played it twice this summer with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, a rather special experience. “Between the concert in Vail and the other in Saratoga, both with the Philadelphia Orchestra, there was a month where I didn’t touch the piece at all. In Saratoga, I saw how much a play could mature in a month without even looking at it. It was the same with my relationship with the conductor and the orchestra. It was truly astonishing. »
Faced with loneliness
How does a young soloist build his concerto repertoire? “It comes from both sides. Sometimes orchestras offer works, which allows you to learn new repertoire, obviously one of the greatest challenges of a concert career. On the other hand, it’s a fairly spontaneous process: it depends, for example, on what I imagine about the color of the orchestra or what I know about the conductor. »
Among the concertos he will tackle in the next two seasons, Bruce Liu cites the 3e Concerto of Prokofiev, the Piano concerto of Scriabin and the 5e Concerto, “The Egyptian”, by Saint-Saëns. “Obviously, Chopin’s concertos will accompany me for the rest of my life,” he punctuates.
The complete reorganization of its existence over the last two years has involved crucial strategic choices, including the choice of agents. Well behind many of his colleagues in terms of its Internet presence and on social networks at the time of the Chopin Competition, Bruce Liu’s site was also in the strand again at the time of writing this article. We understood that this was a sign that he was going to change agencies in Europe shortly, which he confirmed in secret. His choice will be interesting, because as much as the pandemic has marked a boom in so-called “boutique” agencies, which deal with a few artists, the large agencies, very badly hit economically during COVID, seem to be getting back on track.
In the whirlwind of his career, Bruce Liu manages to unite what weighs him down and what comforts him. “What caused me the most problems was obviously the amount of time spent traveling, especially during the summer. I think there are still consequences of the pandemic at airports and it will still take a while to restore a pre-pandemic level of efficiency. One of my dreams would be to be able to teleport from one place to another, but at the same time, these constraints have a positive aspect. The travel time, the 8 or 10 hours on the plane, it’s one of the very rare moments when I find myself alone and where I can think. It’s really quite rare to find yourself alone. For this, the weight of transport also becomes a kind of joy. »
French recital
On November 3, Deutsche Grammophon will release the disc Waves, pieces for solo piano by Rameau, Ravel and Alkan. “The program was built on Rameau and Ravel; we had to find something contrasting. At first, I thought of a bit of Fauré. Then I went through all the French composers and, at the end, I thought of Alkan. In a way, Alkan influenced most romantic composers and it is curious that he is not mentioned much. »
According to Bruce Liu, Deutsche Grammophon was not difficult to convince to let go of the Chopin vein so quickly: “Rameau has not been recorded much with DG, and Alkan never. So they were very enthusiastic. In addition, the French program in a certain way continues the Chopin path, since Chopin was still half French. We continue in the direction of what I would call “sensitive color”. »
The puzzle, Bruce Liu tells us, was “finding a title” for the recital. “The three composers having died in Paris and me having been born in Paris, we had a Parisian common thread in a slightly ironic way. At first I thought of Illusions of Parisbut we just wanted a word, so we agreed on something that gave more space to the imagination. Waves relates to certain parts — A boat on the ocean — and also associates with my style; a rather spontaneous style. » At the heart of this recital, when it appears, the listener will discover a fascinating vision of Mirrors by Ravel, including an anthology reading ofSad birdsof extraordinary subtlety in the mastery of resonances.
We know that Bruce Liu is not only a pianist, but also a music lover. Who impressed him in Mirrors ? “The list is long, especially because of the variety of the five pieces. We think that Ravel is impressionism, but when we hear Alborada del gracioso, we are far from it, there is sometimes even jazz, Basque influences. Each piece has its identity. » After listening to his contemporaries, Bruce Liu “returned to the elders”. “The closest to the composer would obviously be Vlado Perlemuter, his student. Otherwise, I love the style of Samson François, the colors of Richter…”
On the art of mastering sound in recording, Bruce Liu had his own surprises. “In the studio, we can build everything little by little and start again after each phrase. You can also do complete takes and edit them, which was the case. But that changes every day. Not just for the pianist. I remember one day when it started to rain. So, as the humidity level increased, the piano lacked percussiveness. He seemed so soft and characterless to me. However, when I listen to the takes from that day, it doesn’t sound like that at all! »