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Bruce Liu interview: ‘It is important for me to slow down and further explore my inner feelings and emotions’
Michelle Assay
Friday, November 1, 2024
Bruce Liu tells Michelle Assay why he was drawn to the intimacy of Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons
When the Toronto TV news – which generally gives more airtime to cats in a popcorn machine than to classical music – headlines with an international piano competition, you know that there is most likely something ‘proudly Canadian’ at stake. On October 21, 2021, CP24 reported: ‘Montreal pianist Bruce Xiaoyu Liu wins the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition.’ The camera panned to the then 24-year-old Canadian holding his head in his hands in disbelief as he heard his name announced. ‘It really felt like I had a 10-second blackout,’ he tells me. ‘It basically means that forever you will have this sticker on your head: that you are a Chopin performer. I really needed to have time to digest that feeling. To this day, I still can’t believe what happened in Warsaw. I don’t have time to slow down and think about what happened.’
He is speaking to me from his home in Montreal, taking a brief break from what he calls ‘the tsunami’ of international touring that has taken over his life since his success. ‘I was totally unprepared for what was coming up. I wish at school they’d taught me about these things; how to deal with logistics and business stuff related to one’s career.’ He remembers that despite the announcement of the results coming in the early hours of morning, he was immediately ushered into a room where the organisers laid out his tour schedule for the next four months. ‘They told me that in a few days’ time I had to fly to Japan and Brazil. That was all really crazy for me. We had already spent a month at the competition, and I was waiting to go back home immediately afterwards. There were very many new issues to deal with. The happiest thing that I remember was that I managed not to lose anything in that hectic period – which I think is a real success,’ he laughs.
Bruce Liu came to widespread attention when he won the Chopin International Piano Competition in 2021 (photography: Wojciech Grzedzinski)
Liu is soft-spoken and elegant in manner, yet also extremely approachable and friendly, with an innate composure that is endearing and alluring. I notice my own often giggly, enthusiastic voice has softened in reaction to his presence. He is also touchingly modest and down to earth. Not only did he not lose any of his ‘safe-zone’ objects, including his pillow, but he has since signed an exclusive contract with DG and is now about to release his second studio album with the yellow label.
I ask him about his choice of repertoire for the new album – Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons and his Op 5 Romance as a bonus track. ‘I wanted to have a change in terms of my artistic path. I think in this concert life that is constantly moving forward it is important for me to slow down and further explore my inner feelings and emotions: basically to know myself a little bit better.’ He laughs again. ‘So I thought these miniatures would help me come back down to a small space. Before the competition, I was always practising in my room or school practice rooms. Since the competition, I have played more in concert halls than I have in the studio. I wanted to come back and spend a bit more time in this kind of intimate space.’
For anyone who is familiar with his Op 33 Mazurkas from the competition, it’s no surprise to hear that playing soft and intimate music is closer to Liu’s nature. ‘When I was really young, my teachers always reminded me to project, because I liked to enjoy the details of the piece. When I practised at home, I had the tendency to get smaller, smaller.’ He remembers experimenting with throwing a paper plane and trying to hear when it landed while playing – ‘just to prove how softly I could play. Of course, my teachers would explain to me that it’s the dynamic range that is the most crucial thing.’
I try to play with sentiment but not to be sentimental: Bruce Liu embraces the diary-like intimacy of Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons (photography: Darek Golik)
When I spoke to Liu’s most recent teacher, Dang Thai Son (the 1980 Chopin Competition winner and the first Asian to take the prize), among the top qualities of Liu’s playing he listed dynamic range, lightness, elegance and spontaneity. All these are evident in his performances, but in conversation it is Liu’s cultural awareness that stands out most: ‘Of course, Tchaikovsky’s music was influenced by Schumann. I think in his solo piano music we also have shadows of Liszt and even Berlioz. But above all it is always intertwined with literature, not least because of the era he lived in, after Pushkin. So there is this Shakespearean elevation that we also hear in Liszt’s and Berlioz’s programmatic music. Set these alongside the flamboyant concertos, and there is such a curious contrast.’
As for style, ‘even though we think of Tchaikovsky as being very Romantic, in the end his structure is very classical. I try to play with sentiment but not to be sentimental. These are two different things, but the border can be very blurry. Being too sentimental is like putting on too much make-up,’ he says with another smile.
The project seems to have resonated with him on a personal level: ‘Very appropriately, these pieces are like a diary. They mark the 12 months. So, I thought it was like writing my diary through the whole year of touring.’ His concept is guided by the hints enclosed in the poetic epigraph of each piece, and there is something visual and almost cinematographic about it: ‘Curiously, in a way, I sensed that the nature and landscape of these pieces are not dissimilar to those of Canada. Both countries [Russia and Canada] are very big, and in such wide, vast landscapes people can get very lonely. There is more space between people, and we have less contact. I think it all forces us to spend more time with ourselves and to actually see what is there in Nature.’
Canada was not always Liu’s home. Born to Chinese parents in Paris, he and his family moved to Canada when he was six. It was in Canada and quite by chance that he began his piano lessons. ‘I officially started the piano when I was eight … I say piano, but it was more like electric keyboard.’ He goes on to tell me about being hyper as a child and in constant movement. ‘So it happened that we were visiting a friend and there was a piano. I sat there quiet for about 20 minutes. My dad was really surprised and thought we can give it a try.’ At the beginning the piano was just a casual, weekend hobby. But as he showed more interest, his father first upgraded him to an electric piano and later to an upright one. ‘I think he was not so sure whether I would give up, so he didn’t want to invest too much’, he laughs. ‘I never had a very specific direction in my mind. I was also very good at swimming, so at some point I had to decide and choose between piano and swimming. But music was like a window for me, a window to see life.’ He continues: ‘Everyone has their own window on life, whether you are an actor, painter or writer. Music was my window; a way to meet new people, to get out of daily society and spend time with unknown people’. Once he started attending the ‘local conservatoire’, things became more serious. That local Conservatoire happened to be the Conservatoire de Montréal and the class of Richard Raymond, among whose former pupils are Charles Richard-Hamelin, second prize-winner of the Chopin Competition in 2015. ‘If there is one thing I remember learning from him [Raymond] it is how to shape a phrase.’
Bruce Liu – here leaving the stage at the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall – brought individuality and imagination to his Chopin Competition performances (photography: Darek Golik)
In his conversation with me, Richard Raymond remembered his former pupil as someone ‘poised and with a lot of presence’ and recalled working with him on style and structure and preparing him for competitions. ‘It is not the only path to a professional career, but it helps a lot and has become almost obligatory. He knew what he wanted, and he knew which competitions to aim at. He would choose them and then devote himself thoroughly.’ The work paid off as Liu started reaching final stages and collecting prizes. He won second prize at the Thomas and Evan Cooper Competition in 2012 at the age of 15, and was then finalist in the Montreal International Competition (2014) and Arthur Rubinstein Competition (2017), and winner of the Fourth Prize and Audience Awards at the Sendai International Music Competition (Japan, 2016).
These ‘junior’ competitions, as Liu refers to them, again in his typical low-key tone, led to a career-defining encounter. Dang Thai Son happened to be on the juries of the Montreal and Sendai Competitions. ‘I was really impressed by Xiaoyu’s dynamism,’ Dang tells me, referring to Liu by his Chinese name. He also tells me about the origin of Liu’s chosen artistic name: ‘In 2020 Xiaoyu told me he’s chosen this artistic name [Bruce]. I asked him why. He said: “Don’t I look like Bruce Lee?”. I said: “Oh yeah! Not only do you look like him; you play like him: You are the Bruce Lee of the piano!”’
Three years earlier, Liu had entered Dang’s studio at the Université de Montréal on the Bachelor’s degree programme. ‘We worked on all kinds of repertoire, from Russian to contemporary, and of course Chopin’, Liu recalls. ‘I think I sort of already had my personality, but without really knowing what sort of pianist I was. He [Dang] never changed me, which I am grateful for. He discovered me and made me a more convincing version of myself. Which was great. He was there to make sure that I don’t cross the line when I try to express my personality.’ Dang, too, remembers part of his role as being that of ‘a policeman. I let him go free in his own way; but if he goes too far, I warn him.’ Yet it is Liu’s individualism that Dang hails as one of his strongest assets: ‘He doesn’t follow tradition; he looks at things in a personal way. So it speaks to judges.’ It certainly did at the Chopin Competition.
The idea of participating in the Chopin Competition was Liu’s, and perhaps not unrelated to his sporting competitiveness. ‘For pianists, the Chopin Competition is like the Olympics’, Liu tells me. ‘Curiously I decided to enter quite late, perhaps a year or two beforehand. I’m used to having very contrasting works in my programmes. I never thought one day I could have just one composer for a competition programme. So that was both the highlight and the challenge. It would either work or you’re done!’ Dang agreed to the challenge, but Liu thinks even his teacher wouldn’t have considered him a Chopinist. ‘So I went to the competition with no expectations. I never thought I would fit the image of Chopin that the Poles have.’
That experience was riveting for Liu, even before the results were announced. ‘There’s a wonderful atmosphere in Warsaw during the competition. Even the taxi drivers know it is on. It is really like the Olympics. The whole city, no, the whole country comes alive with it. It was a unique feeling.’ The 2021 Competition, delayed from 2020 due to the pandemic, was also a particularly crowded one, with 87 participants in the first round. ‘Because of the huge number of participants there was a lot of time and a big gap between the rounds. So the biggest challenge was how to keep concentration and inspiration alive. At the same time, you kept hearing others, even if you wanted to avoid it. And the problem is that everyone is probably playing the same pieces as you, and everyone is so good. So there is a lot of pressure.’
Even away from the competition, Liu has a sceptical view of over-exposure to information. ‘I think one of our greatest problems today is media and too much information. In the past people dreamed about having such easy access to so many resources; it would have been far more challenging to hear other musicians and pianists. There was no way to know any other sound besides what you hear when you play. Now, it’s the reverse. You can’t know how you play, because you can’t even hear yourself over so much extra noise and sound. It’s paradoxical. People don’t hear information because there is too much information.’
Nevertheless, since the competition, Liu seems to have embraced the now obligatory social-media side and is even having fun with it: witness his Bruce Lee-homage kick to open a bottle of beer, in a post to welcome New Year 2022.
The year-long Covid-related delay gave Liu time to reflect and delve deeper into the universe of Chopin: ‘it was like having private conversations with him through books and scores. I discovered new things while just practising the music. At the same time there was the challenge of keeping everything fresh; it’s like making sure your omelette is not overcooked.’ During this year Liu continued to explore other composers and even to change half of his originally proposed competition programme: ‘I thought there was an extra year, so why not?’
In his post-results reflections for Gramophone, Jed Distler celebrated the triumph of Liu’s individualism, in the solo rounds in particular. Liu himself was fully aware that he ‘didn’t have a square way of playing and put in a lot of personal ideas. I thought that would be a headache for many jury members. But at the end of the day, I always saw the competition as a really prestigious platform to express what I had come to express. We all get something from it, regardless of the results. And of course, there’s making new friends, which is very important to me.’ Despite his optimistic view, Liu also believes that in any competition there is an element of luck, which can go either way: ‘every little factor can cause a disruption’. So he makes sure his and his family’s expectations are managed: ‘Just do your job and whatever should happen, happens.’ I ask him about the reaction of his family and those close to him. ‘Funnily, people closest to me brought in a more rational aspect, giving me practical advice on how to survive what was about to follow’.
Shortly after his success, DG released a selection of works Liu had played at various stages of the Competition. The album was hailed by Jeremy Nicholas as ‘one of the most distinguished Chopin recitals of recent years, full of maturity, character and purpose’. This was followed by his first studio album, ‘Waves’, with a refreshingly original programme that juxtaposed Rameau and Ravel with Alkan. The title of the disc has puzzled many, including JN, who admitted as much in his favourable review. ‘We searched a very long time for this title,’ Liu explains. ‘A wave has its own structure, always going away but we never know where to.’ He also says that several of the pieces (such as Ravel’s ‘Une barque sur l’océan’ and Alkan’s Barcarolle) have strong connections with the theme of water. But then he admits that the original title he came up with was ‘French Illusion’. ‘I wanted to go back to my roots, not just Paris but also Montreal, and the connection with Chopin who lived the second half of his life in Paris. I think all these three pieces on the disc are French but at the same time not so French. Alkan has Lisztian virtuosic aspirations; Rameau borrows from ancient and exotic sources; and Ravel has the Spanish flavour. The works also connect to my own identity, which is very mixed. So, in a sense I consider myself an illusion as well.’ He laughs again. ‘But in the end we decided on “Waves”, so that it leaves more to the listeners’ imagination. I think what is amazing is that in every art form what you understand might be very different from the audience’s perception. And I think this is what keeps art alive.’
Liu considers his own ‘mixed’ identity as a fluid concept. ‘Maybe the easiest way to answer is to think if there is a football game, which country do you root for? But I actually don’t know. I think I’d say my identity changes depending on the subject. If you talk about food, probably Chinese; if you think of friends, that would be Canadian, because I have been here the longest; if you say history, I’d say European, because I love history. It depends on the area.’ I recall Richard Raymond’s comment about Liu’s chameleon-like piano personality. But more than that, I feel I am in the presence of someone who can move smoothly between youthful competitiveness and energy to mature and profound wisdom. He could be spotted go-kart racing, as he was in Poznan´ shortly after his Warsaw success; yet at the same time he was making thoughtful statements on Poland’s most popular TV show about the challenge of adjusting to the character of a Fazioli piano: ‘The action was quite difficult to control, but I think sometimes it’s good to do something more difficult and adapt to new situations. It’s a challenge of sorts. Like now, I have a whole new life that I also have to adapt to.’ Despite the pressure of the ‘Chopin performer sticker’ he had once been so concerned about, he has managed to shape most of his repertoire as he wishes. ‘Chopin concertos will always be a part of my life; but I keep myself very open and my repertoire varied.’ This season’s repertoire includes Prokofiev and Scriabin, alongside Tchaikovsky.
And his musical inspirations? ‘I grew up listening to Brendel, because I felt I could find structure in his performance; it was like an education.’ But he remembers how astonished he was to see so many fans of ‘free’ pianists, such as Alfred Cortot. ‘I couldn’t listen to Cortot for ten seconds because there were wrong notes everywhere. I couldn’t understand why he was considered so good.’ Although he now better understands the greatness of such playing, he finds it amusing that today Cortot would have probably been eliminated in the first round of the Chopin Competition. ‘How paradoxical, no?! Performances have become very rational. Maybe it’s again because with today’s media everything is captured and played again and again. I now understand why he’s considered one of the greatest. So we are forced to achieve this perfection in technique even if it comes at the expense of being in the moment.’
We return to the idea of the complexity of simplicity. He tells me about his lifelong fascination with Charlie Chaplin: ‘Of course, as a child I simply thought he was funny. Now I understand there is a much deeper message behind the act. It’s a great example of what we were saying: expressing very dramatic and deep messages in a very simple way.’ He considers Mozart as another useful example: ‘I think you can only play Mozart if you are either 10 or 80 years old. Just as with childhood, later in life, say at 80, we don’t have anything to prove, so it becomes simpler. It’s something related to our inner comfort zone. If you find the balance, everything becomes simple. The opposite is also true: that we need ambition in order to become better versions of ourselves. So it’s a lifelong struggle. But there are always simple moments, in fragments, in every period of life. We just need to define them.’ And it seems Liu knows just how to define and enjoy those simple moments, from go-karting to swimming to Bruce Lee kicks to Chopin and Tchaikovsky.
