Over the last two years, concert-goers have become used to artist substitutions and programme changes. The Philharmonia’s all-Tchaikovsky programme with their principal conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali had both: it had proved impossible for the pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii to travel to London for the concert and in his place came Bruce Liu, who last autumn won the most prestigious of all piano prizes, the International Chopin competition in Warsaw.
It was Liu’s UK debut, and he brought with him a change of concerto too, opting for the challenge of Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto, which is far less often performed than its popular predecessor. There can’t be many pianists in the early stages of their international careers with that huge, daunting work in their repertoire, but apparently Liu has been playing it for a number of years, and the tireless confidence with which he launched into its cascades of figuration suggested an easy familiarity with it.
