Tchaikovsky: The Seasons album review – exquisite care and ego-free piano playing | Classical music

Bruce Liu first got here to world consideration profitable the Worldwide Chopin Competitors in Warsaw in 2021, however since that success he has been cautious to keep away from being pigeonholed as a Chopin specialist. He made his British debut with Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto, and his first studio disc for Deutsche Grammophon was an all-French programme of Rameau, Alkan and Ravel. Now the Canadian pianist turns his consideration to the very best identified of Tchaikovsky’s piano works, the sequence of 12 character items reflecting the months of the 12 months that was composed in 1875 and 1876, to be printed month-to-month in a St Petersburg music journal.

The items making up The Seasons have been written rapidly, the final seven of them in simply 5 weeks after Tchaikovsky accomplished the orchestration of his ballet Swan Lake. Each the concept of such a set and lots of traits of the piano writing look again to Schumann’s examples, however they by no means aspire to any type of profundity. They’re charming salon items, virtually guileless, and that’s precisely how Liu presents them, by no means making an attempt to impose a pretend seriousness on music that doesn’t want it, however on the similar time treating it with monumental respect and apparent affection. His enjoying is exquisitely polished, however freed from mannerisms; each phrase appears to have a very pure form and its personal color. Even with the addition of Tchaikovsky’s F minor Romance Op 5 as a filler there’s nonetheless lower than 55 minutes of music right here, however the sheer high quality simply outweighs amount. The entire disc is a mannequin of ego-free piano enjoying.

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