Here was a ghost of Christmas Future for the finalists of the International Chopin Competition currently battling it out in Warsaw. Since his victory at the 2021 Competition, the Paris-born Canadian Bruce Liu has been conquering some of the most prestigious stages of the world—including a BBC Proms appearance this summer. And for 2025-26 he adds the feather of TSO Spotlight Artist to his cap.
For his first concert of the new season, Liu chose a Mozart concerto rather than a virtuoso blockbuster. That comes as little surprise. Chopin’s well-known love of Mozart is one connection. Also, since his Chopin victory, Liu has made it clear, at least in his recordings, that he is fully at home with the more intimate repertoire. Mozart in particular was the composer he mentioned he’d love to do more of when I interviewed him last year.
Bruce Liu with the TSO at Roy Thomson Hall. Photo: Allan Cabral
The A major Concerto No. 23 is from that extraordinary period of Mozart’s creativity that also witnessed his Marriage of Figaro, and like its more tragic C minor sibling No. 24, it is operatic through and through. For this to come across there needs to be a delicate balance between orchestra and the soloist: something that might have worked better had the TSO strings been further reduced.
The acoustic in Roy Thomson Hall can be unfriendly to soloists, but as Peter Oundjian with Jonathan Crow showed recently, the problem is not insurmountable. Guest conductor Franz Welser-Möst brought with him his hallmark disengaged style—technically efficient, but unmoving and unmoved, even in the National Anthem. It seemed not to have occurred to him to do something about the balance.
No fault could be found with Liu’s artistry, however. His demeanour may have appeared somewhat aloof during the orchestral opening—leaning back against the chair (not the traditional backless piano stool), his gaze wandering. But a few notes into the piano’s first entry, that impression vanished. Here vitality and refinement were further graced by subtle personal inflections and stylish added ornaments in repeats.
Bruce Liu with the TSO conducted by Franz Welser-Möst at Roy Thomson Hall. Photo: Allan Cabral
The second movement was both elegant and elegiac: expressive, but never excessive. In the finale, much of his crystalline passagework was obscured by the orchestra, but stylistically Liu remained poised and polished. By comparison with the great Mozarteans of the day—such as Emanuel Ax last season in the same hall—one senses that Liu is still completing his “victory lap.” Nevertheless his pianistic command is unmistakable. The audience, unsurprisingly, adored him, and he rewarded them with a spellbinding, featherlight rendition of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu.
The TSO seems to be making a theme this season of conductor-prepared versions of works. A couple of weeks ago we heard Peter Oundjian’s shortened version of Joan Tower’s Concerto for Orchestra. This time Welser-Möst presented his own suite from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (1911). The opera’s setting in an idealized version of Mozart’s Vienna setting made it a fitting companion to the concerto, but the music struggled to thrive outside its operatic context.
Bruce Liu with the TSO conducted by Franz Welser-Möst at Roy Thomson Hall. Photo: Allan Cabral
Welser-Möst’s compilation extends to some 42 two minutes—roughly 50 per cent longer than the usually heard Suite, and too long by roughly the same margin. It stitches together the hedonistic opening, the intoxicating waltzes, the magical “Presentation of the Rose,” and the luscious Trio. But the extensive episodes of padding serve to diminish rather than enhance the highlights. Welser-Möst’s unbending, energy-saving conducting further dimmed the music’s glow. Given how much effort he must have invested in preparing the score, this was odd, to say the least.
A brief encore from Strauss’s Capriccio closed the evening—an oddly unmemorable choice if the aim was to send the audience home humming, and once again conducted with a curious lack of whole-heartedness.
More on the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming concerts can be found here.
