Bruce Liu Turns the Spotlight on Satie

The much-anticipated debut studio album from Bruce Liu, winner of the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition, was released to critical acclaim in November 2023. Waves: Music by Rameau · Ravel · Alkan – Liu’s homage to French pianism – focused on three composers who played a part in the evolution of keyboard music in France between the 18th and early 20th centuries. The vinyl and limited-edition deluxe versions of Waves featured bonus tracks by a  fourth: Erik Satie. Liu’s readings of his Gnossiennes are now being made digitally available for the first time. Waves: Music by Satie presents two performances of all six works – the original grand piano versions and newly recorded upright piano interpretations – and is set for release on 28 June 2024. Gnossienne No. 1, Lent (upright version) will be issued as a taster track on 7 June and a video for No. 4, Lent (grand piano version) will come out on the same day as the album.

The eccentric and iconoclastic Parisian composer Satie invented the title Gnossienne for six deceptively simple short works for solo piano he wrote between 1890 and 1897. Full of new and unexpected colours, with a sometimes oriental feel, they may have been influenced by the eastern music Satie heard at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Bruce Liu, who was himself born in Paris, creates two distinctive but equally captivating soundworlds here with his grand and upright piano versions – from the richer tones of the former to the more intimate, hushed sounds of the latter. Both versions capture the purity and restraint of Satie’s pianistic style.

Reviewing Waves: Music by Rameau · Ravel · Alkan, Gramophone wrote, “Liu is a masterly colourist who manages to bring a touching emotional engagement to music that can often hold you at arm’s length” – the same unquestionably holds true for his interpretations of Satie.