PIANO DUO RECITAL BY KATE LIU & ERIC LU / Review

 

PIANO DUO RECITAL 

BY KATE LIU & ERIC LU 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Sunday (20 October 2024) 

Some forty years, a recording was made of Schubert’s Fantasy in F minor (D.940) for piano four hands and Mozart’s Sonata in D major (K.448) for two pianos which still stands the test of time. Both pianists had been winners of major international piano competitions. Both were Jewish, one was American and the other Romanian. One is, of course, referring to that unforgettable Gramophone Award winning Columbia Masterworks (now Sony Classical) recording by Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu. 

Remember this disc?

Last Sunday afternoon, the same two works were performed by two competition-winning pianists, both American Chinese, one from Massachusetts and the other born in Singapore. It is a sign of the times that some of the most musical and rewarding performances today now come from pianists with Asian ancestry. On this occasion, the pianists were the tandem of Eric Lu and Kate Liu, making their Singapore debut as a duo, presented by Altenburg Arts. 

Their recital opened with Schubert’s single-movement Allegro in A minor (D.947), also called Lebensstürme (Storms of Life). This work in sonata-form displayed the classic Stürm und Drang (Storm and Stress) tropes of angst and agitation in music although coloured by more refined Biedermeier sensitivities. Eric took the primo role with Kate in secondo and they blended beautifully with a single voice. There are no storms without the calms in between, and these were perfectly judged, Eric’s soft treble passages sensitively backed by Kate’s acutely perceptive bass. There was never an ugly sound to be in some of Schubert’s more violent pages. 

Their parts were reversed for the Fantasy, but the outcome was no less musical. In fact, one could not tell who was primo or secondo, such was their tightly knit ensemble with the give-and-take that is this chamber music, or Hausmusik for the matter. The music’s inherent melancholy and singing tone, the more lively development and the counterpoint in the fugue towards the end were lovingly handled. There was nothing to dislike in this winning performance. 

Both pianists were on separate keyboards after the intermission, with the novel placement of two pianos one not commonly seen here. The keyboards (and pianists) were facing in opposite directions but were still in close proximity which definitely helped communication. The Mozart Sonata, a cornerstone of the two-piano repertoire, received a most sympathetic reading, with both pianists in sync and in balance from start to end. 

There was to be no over-pedalling or smudging of textures, with the lightness of their parts shining through. Their trills were so evenly voiced as to be indivisible. The finale bounded ever so buoyantly, the work radiating a joie de vivre not encountered at Victoria Concert Hall since the close-to-perfect conception by the husband-and-wife duo of Dennis Lee and Toh Chee Hung at the 2005 Singapore International Piano Festival. 

The concert closed with Chopin’s Rondo in C major (Op.73), an early work from 1828 despite its late opus number. The typically fussy passage-work and filigreed ornamentions of that age came through most persuasively, with outward virtuosity never being a prime consideration. Such was the utter musicality of this splendid duo. 

The appreciative applause was reciprocated with two encores on a single keyboard, first J.S.Bach’s Gottes Zeit ist die allebeste Zeit (BWV.106, God’s Time is the Best Time) as arranged by György Kurtág – a rare gem - and Brahms’ popular Waltz (Op.39 No.15) heard in A major (instead of the usual A flat major). A repeat visit of this duo (or as soloists) cannot come soon enough.

Kate Liu and Eric Lu

were presented by Altenburg Arts.