STRAVINSKY & PROKOFIEV WITH HEYWARD
Bruce Liu
PROGRAM NOTES
By Janet E. Bedell and Aaron Ziegel
After being awarded First Prize at the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition in 2021, Bruce Liu has found a distinctive voice that captures audiences with his trademark spontaneity, vivid imagination and mastery of the piano. The 2026 Pianist Magazine named Liu one of the‘ 10 legendary pianists with the most beautiful cantabile tone’.
In demand across the globe, Liu performs with the world’ s finest ensembles and conductors, including the London, Boston, and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, Staatskapelle Dresden, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre National de France, and Daniele Gatti, Manfred Honeck, Paavo Järvi, Petr Popelka, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Lahav Shani, and Dalia Stasevska.
The 2026-27 season sees Liu undertake major international tours, including with the London Symphony Orchestra in China, Budapest Festival Orchestra in Japan, Montreal Symphony Orchestra in Hong Kong and Korea, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in Europe. He also makes his debuts with the Netherlands Philharmonic, Spanish National Orchestra and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and returns to the New York Philharmonic.
A sought-after recitalist, in the 2026- 27 season, Liu performs at the Boston Celebrity Series, Houston, Seattle, Chicago Symphony Center, Philharmonie de Paris, BOZAR Bruxelles, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, and Wigmore Hall. He is a regular guest at various international festivals, including Edinburgh, Klavier- Festival Ruhr, Verbier, La Roque-d’ Anthéron, Rheingau, Aspen, and Tanglewood.
An exclusive recording artist with Deutsche Grammophon, Bruce Liu released his latest solo album Lunaris in 2026.
Born in Paris and raised in Montréal, Liu’ s artistry reflects his multicultural heritage— blending European, North American, and Chinese culture. He studied with Richard Raymond and Dang Thai Son.
Christoph Koestlin
Mikhail Glinka
Born June 1, 1804 in Novospasskoye, Russian Empire Died February 15, 1857 in Berlin, Germany
OVERTURE TO RUSLAN AND LYUDMILA [ 1837-1842 ]
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings.
Considered the“ father of Russian music,” Glinka made his dreams of distinctively Russian music a reality with his first opera, A Life for the Tsar. Its 1836 premiere was such a triumph that he promptly began a second opera in 1837. But though Russlan and Lyudmila would become the greater work, it had a rocky genesis. It was set to a colorful and fantastic fairytale by the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The tale tells of the beautiful Lyudmila, pursued by three suitors and abducted by the evil dwarf Chernomor; finally, after many trials and the undoing of assorted magical spells, she is rescued and won by her true love, the noble Russlan. Pushkin promised he would turn this into a suitable libretto for Glinka but was killed in a duel before he could. Thus, Glinka ended up with a messy stew of a libretto, and this contributed to the tepid response at its premiere in St. Petersburg in 1842.
But Glinka’ s musical score was beautiful and imaginative, and Russians soon embraced it. Known for its dazzling Overture in a well-crafted sonata form, it is above all a brilliant showcase for the violins. The romantic second theme, sung by the violas and cellos, is taken from Russlan’ s second-act aria as he dreams of Lyudmila on the battlefield. A vivacious coda tells us this opera will have a happy ending.
JANET E. BEDELL is a program annotator and feature writer who writes for Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Caramoor Festival of the Arts, and other musical organizations.
Sergei Prokofiev
Born April 27, 1891 in Sontsovka, Russian Empire Died March 5, 1953 in Moscow, Soviet Union
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 3 [ 1913-1921 ]
Instrumentation: Two flutes( second doubling piccolo) two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, tambourine, castanets, cymbals( pair), bass drum, strings, in addition to the solo piano.
Between 1918 and 1936, Sergei Prokofiev lived the life of an international touring pianist, composer, and conductor, first based in the United States and later in Western Europe. Around the same time, Sergei Rachmaninoff was also making his mark on the American concert scene. Audiences here largely preferred Rachmaninoff’ s warmly expressive Romanticism over Prokofiev’ s more forbidding Modernism. Critic Richard Aldrich’ s brutal takedown in a 1922 The New York Times review was typical, dismissing Prokofiev’ s compositions as having“ only a very few passages that bear recognizable kinship with what has hitherto been recognized as music.” For his Third Piano Concerto, Prokofiev sought a more approachable style, adjusting his idiom to something he hoped would appeal more broadly to American tastes. The composer played the concerto’ s successful premiere on December 16, 1921, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Frederick Stock.
A Russian folksong-like melody for clarinet opens the concerto in unassuming fashion, but once the tempo picks up, the piano is rarely absent from the texture. Much of the piano writing in the first movement is characterized by a motoric, perpetual-motion drive that contrasts with moments of thick chordal dissonance and occasional lyrical respites, including some that revisit the opening clarinet melody. A set of variations follows, offering five distinct takes on an old-fashioned, gavotte-like theme. The finale begins with what at first seems like some sort of macabre, off-kilter waltz before growing into a veritable“ argument”( to use Prokofiev’ s term) between the
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