Bruce Liu, Piano

Event is Live

Carnegie Hall Presents

Friday, May 19, 2023 8 PM Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage

Bruce Liu by Yanzhang

Witness the New York recital debut of pianist Bruce Liu, winner of the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition. He presents a thrilling program of Chopin highlights, with an equally exciting Liszt work added for good measure. Of the recording from his title-winning performance, Gramophone writes, “Forget the Chopin Competition element … listen to it simply as one of the most distinguished Chopin recitals of recent years, full of maturity, character and purpose.” Though Liu is an elite and impassioned interpreter of this breathtaking material, his ambitions extend far beyond the scope of any one composer. Don’t miss this chance to hear a masterful program of Chopin while the virtuoso performs it to such enthusiastic demand.

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Performers

Bruce Liu, Piano
New York Recital Debut
First Prize Winner, 18th International Chopin Piano Competition (2021)

Program

CHOPIN Rondo à la mazur in F Major, Op. 5

CHOPIN Ballade No. 2 in F Major

CHOPIN Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Mozart's Don Giovanni

CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor

CHOPIN Trois nouvelles etudes, Op. Posth.

LISZT Réminiscences de Don Juan

Encores:

RAMEAU "Les tendres plaintes" from Suite in D Major from Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin

CHOPIN Écossaise in D-flat Major from Three Écossaises, Op. posth. 72, No. 3

SATIE Gnossienne No. 1

LISZT "La campanella" in G-sharp Major from Grandes Études de Paganini

ALBÉNIZ "El Puerto" from Iberia, Book I

CHOPIN Etude in G-flat Major, Op. 10, No. 5, "Black Keys"

KAPUSTIN Variations for Piano, Op. 41

Event Duration

The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.

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At a Glance

Close contemporaries, Chopin and Liszt were both seminal figures in the Romantic movement. Just as Liszt experimented with forms, harmonies, and sonorities that anticipated the musical language of impressionism and modernism, so too did Chopin’s radically unconventional conception of the keyboard make him one of the authentically revolutionary figures of music history. The works on tonight’s program, ranging from short salon pieces to a full-length sonata, attest to Chopin’s accomplishments in various genres, as well as his phenomenal command of harmony, texture, and figuration. His early set of variations on a theme from Don Giovanni is answered by Liszt’s equally brilliant pianistic “paraphrase” of Mozart’s opera. After Chopin’s death in 1849, Liszt told a friend, “No one compares to him: He shines lonely, peerless in the firmament of art.”

Bios

Bruce Liu

Bruce Liu came to the world’s attention in 2021 when he won First Prize at the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. He has since toured the world, appearing at venues such as the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Philharmonie Berlin, Weiner ...