{"id":96128,"date":"2023-05-08T15:43:27","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T19:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=96128"},"modified":"2023-05-08T15:43:27","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T19:43:27","slug":"scrutiny-bruce-xiaoyu-liu-plays-cool-brilliance-koerner-hall-recital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2023\/05\/08\/scrutiny-bruce-xiaoyu-liu-plays-cool-brilliance-koerner-hall-recital\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Bruce Xiaoyu Liu Plays With Cool Brilliance In Koerner Hall Recital"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bruce
Bruce Xiaoyu Liu (Photo: \u00a9Yanzhang)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chopin: Rondo \u00e0 la mazur Op. 5; Ballade No. 2 Op. 28; Variations on \u201cL\u00e0 ci darem la mano\u201d Op. 2; Sonata Op. 35; Trois nouvelles \u00e9tudes Op. posth. Liszt: R\u00e9miniscences de Don Juan. Bruce Xiaoyu Liu, piano. Koerner Hall, May 7, 2023.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Shades of Sol Hurok and the superstar recitals of yesteryear: There were stage seats in Koerner Hall on Sunday afternoon for the RCM debut of Bruce Liu, winner of the 2021 Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, the Paris-born Montrealer played a good deal of music by the namesake of that prestigious contest. Somewhat surprisingly, I got the biggest buzz from his Liszt.<\/p>\n

Fear not, there was much to admire in the Chopin selections, which included the great Sonata Op. 35. The trio of the famous funeral march was elegantly understated, and the scurrying octave quavers of the Presto finale had the intended unearthly effect. I enjoyed the rhythmic freedom of the development of the first movement (nerd note: Liu took the exposition repeat without the Grave introduction) but otherwise felt I was hearing a by-the-book Op. 35 performed (of course) at a stellar level.<\/p>\n

The program began with Chopin\u2019s Rondo \u00e0 la mazur Op. 5, which prophetically reflected the 16-year-old composer\u2019s intersecting interest in lyricism, complex part-writing and national pride. Then came the Ballade No. 2 Op. 28, notable for its soft and stormy sections in opposing keys, both done justice. The Variations on \u201cL\u00e0 ci darem la mano\u201d Op. 2 \u2014 written when Chopin was a hoary veteran of 17 \u2014 was a compendium of athletic effects. Liu played them with cool brilliance, if such a thing can be.<\/p>\n

There were also simple pleasures, as in the first of Chopin\u2019s seldom-heard Trois nouvelles \u00e9tudes Op. posth., its melody tugged at affectionately in the prizewinning Liu manner. Still, there was an extra jolt of extroversion at the end of the recital in Liszt\u2019s R\u00e9miniscences de Don Juan (\u201cDon Juan\u201d being Mozart\u2019s opera Don Giovanni, whence comes the \u201cL\u00e0 ci darem\u201d tune). The opening chords growled portentously, scales lit up the room, left-hand octaves thundered like cannon. Liu was not only playing well, he was playing for us.<\/p>\n

Three encores came quickly: Charles-Valentin Alkan\u2019s Barcarolle Op. 65 No. 6, Liszt\u2019s La Campanella, Alb\u00e9niz\u2019s El Puerto from Book 1 of Iberia. They were songful, rousing and colourful, in that order. The crowd cheered robustly. The recital ended with a presentation by the Canadian Chopin Society.<\/p>\n

Next time, I hope to hear Liu in Austro-German music. With Chopin as the encore.<\/p>\n

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Bruce Xiaoyu Liu was not only playing well, he was playing for us in his Koerner Hall recital debut, with a program of Chopin and Liszt. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":96131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40430,76,19,47,52],"tags":[39835,40017,1876],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/05\/Bruce-Liu-Koerner-Hall-REVIEW.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-p0s","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96128"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96133,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96128\/revisions\/96133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96128"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=96128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}