Kate Liu is one of the participants from the 2015 Chopin Competition best remembered by the Warsaw audience, and she regularly returns to the stage where she won third prize. She has become known as a pianist whose interpretations are characterised by particular delicacy and intimacy. This time, she will present a programme consisting of works by two geniuses of early romanticism. Fryderyk Chopin and Robert Schumann helped to forge the face of pianism at that time, both as composers and performers, and also – in Schumann’s case – through music criticism.
From Chopin’s oeuvre, Kate Liu has chosen two miniatures and an elaborate cyclical form. The recital will begin with the reprise-form Nocturne in F major, published in 1833, full of dramatic contrasts. That will be followed by one of the Polish composer’s most tender compositions – the Berceuse, an arabesque miniature in the form of variations against a lullaby accompaniment in the left hand. The Chopin part of the recital will conclude with the Sonata in B flat minor, containing the famous Funeral March and enigmatic finale, which – unusually – did not find favour with Chopin’s friend Schumann.
The cordial relationship between the two composers is evidenced partly by the works they dedicated to each other. One example is Kreisleriana, Op. 16, a cycle of works by Schumann inspired by the character of the eccentric Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, created by E. T. A. Hoffmann. When writing the graceful Arabesque in C major, meanwhile, which will close Kate Liu’s recital, Schumann was guided – as he admitted in correspondence – by feminine delicacy.
Bartłomiej Gembicki