Subtle Tchaikovsky from Bruce Liu

Three years after winning the 18th Chopin International Piano Competition, Canadian pianist Bruce Liu brings a welcome leftfield choice of repertoire for his second studio album. Tchaikovsky rarely gets a mention in discussions of piano music, yet there is a surprisingly full catalogue of recordings of The Seasons, a work which more accurately could have been titled ‘The Months’.

Bruce Liu is a precise player, and understatement is a central quality of his interpretation. His articulation is exacting, and his dynamic shadings are subtle, with a particularly well controlled pianissimo. The piano is close-mic’d, but the recording matches Liu’s intimate sense of scale and happily avoids the practice of artificially stretching the size of the instrument as some engineers do.

Tchaikovsky’s fireside glows less warmly than does Schumann’s in Kinderszenen, and this is partly because he doesn’t stretch and explore the orchestral capabilities of the piano in the same way.  His Shrovetide Festival can sound tame in comparison to the more colourful movements of Carnaval, and the melodic material is less expansive, though with a beauty of its own. This is a different Tchaikovsky to the composer of big ballets and the impressive opening of the first piano concerto, and it's a soundworld that Liu inhabits with a natural sense of shape and pacing. The same luminosity and attention to detail heard in his previous album, Waves, is also strongly in evidence here.

Liu captures the work of August, The Harvest with a great sense of quiet activity in the outer sections, and beautiful lyricism in the central section. There is a breath-taking delicacy to his interpretation of March, The Song of the Lark, and he imbues April, Snowdrop with a convincing sense of spring awakening. His articulation and effortless but unshowy command of the keyboard here is in itself worth the price of admission, and the same beautiful phrasing and voicing result in an affectively wistful October, Autumnal Song.

Some of Tchaikovsky's writing relies on colourful interpretation to paint more vivid scenes, and this is where I sometimes yearn for Pavel Kolesnikov’s more vibrant February Carnival, and more brightly sun-lit work of the July Reaper, captured perfectly by Hyperion, but we're lucky to have both interpretations to enable a deeper understanding of this music. 

It would be easy to succumb in these pieces, as in Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words or Chopin’s Nocturnes, to overindulgence and maudlin sentimentality. Liu is wholly successful in avoiding this, using his deft touch, moderate sensibilities and sensitive pedalling to give the music space to speak for itself.

Liu closes the album with an interpretation of the Romance in F Minor, Op.6 which pulls together everything that makes his approach to Tchaikovsky's piano writing such a valuable discovery. Where this piece calls for greater contrast in dynamic range, he delivers with the model judgement that is a feature of this entire album. This is a valuable addition to the catalogue, not only in being a well judged second album in Liu's exclusive deal with DG, but also as a well considered and beautifully expressed exploration of Tchaikovsky's writing for the piano.