Bruce Liu: Water Reflections

“I’ve been playing the piano since I was young, but I am also a passionate swimmer,” says pianist Bruce Liu, whose playlist combines these two loves, exploring how composers have represented water in all its forms, from oceans and rivers to streams, aquariums, and rainfall. Lui takes us on a journey to the 18th century and Handel’s celebratory accompaniment to a royal flotilla on the River Thames; with Smetana, we follow the Vltava, winding through Bohemia; and we stop to marvel at a sunrise on the ocean, courtesy of one of Debussy’s most powerful and vivid tone poems, La mer. Ravel’s filigree piano music captures the mercurial and seductive water nymph Undine, while Saint-Saëns, with equally shimmering piano effects, captures the magical colours and iridescent light of a tropical aquarium. For Liu, this music reminds him as much of the healing properties of water as its raw, awesome power. “Everywhere I go on my concert tours, I try to find a place to swim,” he reveals. “Being in water and moving in water always takes my mind off things.”