31ST SINGAPORE
INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL:
KATE LIU IN RECITAL
Victoria Concert Hall
Thursday (26 June 2025)
This year marks Lim Yan’s final year as Artistic Director of the Singapore International Piano Festival. The Singaporean concert pianist’s tenure began in 2019 but was disrupted by Covid in 2020. Performances resumed in 2021 with an all-local cast of pianists, before the return of international travel led to the festival as we know it. The passing of long-time piano technician Walter Haass in 2024 was a shock, and his 29-year run as resident piano wizard is unlikely to be surpassed. The baton (or keys to the Steinway) has been passed to Albert Tiu and his roster of pianists for 2026 have been named (go check the festival booklet!).
The 31st festival’s curtain-raiser was Singapore-born American pianist Kate Liu, 3rd prizewinner at the 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition. Opening her recital with proper Sturm und Drang was Mozart’s Sonata in A minor (K.310), one of two sonatas in the minor key. She injected an urgency to its stormy first movement without sacrificing beauty of sound. Pedaling was exemplary with no textures being smudged, and this continued well into the elegant slow movement. The finale’s Presto sizzled and caught fire without its fast pacing blurring the lines.
Some may not favour Mozart with a Romantic outlook but Liu’s view of Brahms’ Four Ballades (Op.10) might well be unimpeachable. Beauty of sound was prized, especially the voicing of its intriguing harmonies. Whether these essays were inspired by literary sources is immaterial, but their A-B-A form were opportunities for stark contrasts which she exploited to the fullest.
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| Photo: Clive Choo |
The opening D minor “Edward” ballade matched sobriety with violence, for example, and when the music returned to each A section, a transformation of sorts would have taken place. Nothing is ever the same again. Liu’s keen musicianship makes you listen to these details and marvel. The final and longest B major ballade, had an extended close, bringing the half to a satisfying end.
Like the late great Fou Ts’ong in 1955, Liu was the winner of the Mazurka Prize in Warsaw sixty years later, and it is not a big surprise. Her inimitable way with Chopin’s Four Mazurkas (Op.30), a poignant combo of melancholy and exultation, steady pacing and rubato, made these Polish dances the evening’s true highlight. Schumann referred to these nationalistic miniatures as “cannons and flowers”, and Liu understood every bit of that ethos.
Chopin Sonata No.2 in B flat minor (Op.35), the Funeral March Sonata, came on without break from the last Mazurka, and Liu reaped the whirlwind. Schumann, again, called it “Chopin’s four most unruly children housed under the same roof”. The opening movement was passionate and full-blooded, and she observed the exposition repeat including the declamatory opening four bars marked Grave. The Scherzo was no less trenchant, with impetuosity balanced with sheer lyricism in the Trio section. The eponymous Marche funebre took an epic turn, its rumbling procession building up to a head of steam before easing to lilting beauty in D flat major. The brief finale came like a shock, the proverbial cold wind over a graveyard sweeping through under two minutes, the marvel being Liu’s unwavering evenness on both hands.
Strange as it may seem, this is a comparatively rare performance of the Funeral March Sonata in 31 years of the piano festival, the Third Sonata (Op.58) being performed many more times. Liu’s sole encore was simplicity and purity wrapped up in two minutes, the first piece (Im ruhigen Tempo) from Schumann’s Gesänge der Frühe (Songs of Dawn, Op.133). Just sublime.
