Sophia (Shuya) Liu delighted the audience in Concert 2 of the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts recital series on Friday. Born in Shanghai in 2008, she moved to Japan when she was two, and now lives in Montreal. At 15, she has already won first prizes in many piano competitions worldwide. Liu has given recitals in North and South American, Europe and Asia, and recently performed as a soloist with the Bazzini Consort Orchestra and can be observed in the Chopin No. 1 Piano Concerto HERE.

From her first note in the Mephisto Waltz No. 1, it was obvious that she was in complete command. To play with so much poise and authority at such a young age is truly awe inspiring. Liu is a beautiful young lady; her graceful gestures and intense concentration bring great joy to both our eyes and ears.

Liszt wrote his first Mephisto Waltz between 1859 and 1862. Originally for orchestra, he later arranged them for piano.  It is program music, a musical rendition of Nikolaus Lenau’s 1836 verse drama Faust. The following program note, which Liszt took from Lenau, appeared in the printed score: 

There is a wedding feast in progress in the village inn, with music, dancing, carousing. Mephistopheles and Faust pass by, and Mephistopheles induces Faust to enter and take part in the festivities. Mephistopheles snatches the fiddle from the hands of a lethargic fiddler and draws from it indescribably seductive and intoxicating strains. The amorous Faust whirls about with a full-blooded village beauty in a wild dance; they waltz in mad abandon out of the room, into the open, away into the woods. The sounds of the fiddle grow softer and softer, and the nightingale warbles his love-laden song.

Mephisto is a demon featured in German folklore, and in the Faust legend he acts as the devil’s agent, collecting the souls of the damned. It is well known that Liszt was religious, late in life being ordained as an abbot. According to Vladimir Feltsman, ”Franz Liszt carried a walking stick with the faces of St. Francis of Assisi, Faust’s Gretchen, and Mephistopheles carved on it. Apparently, he longed for the Divine, craved women and worldly pleasures, and was fascinated by the diabolical.” That he composed four Mephisto Waltzes showcases Liszt’s intense fascination with the diabolical, and perhaps he envisioned his own life’s temptations and musical gifts paralleling Faust. Many pianists opt for a sinister beginning of the Mephisto Waltz, some rendering it downright creepy. But Liu starts this tale more from the point of view of the young maiden, who just hears an orchestra tuning up. And tuning up very fast, she keeps this fast tempo, striking the keys with astounding accuracy, her runs are fluid, her arpeggios pearly, and for such a tiny person she produces an amazingly loud volume from the Steinway.

The Sonetto 123 del Petrarca is based on an ardent love poem, “I beheld on earth angelic grace,” so intense is her beauty that mountains are moved, rivers stilled, even the sun is jealous of her eyes. Liu showed great sensitivity and grace, and the shimmering of the music’s arpeggios were seemingly reflected in the shimmering of her gown, which was burgundy, the color of love.

Liszt transformed seven arias from Bellini’s Norma into a 16-minute piano solo piece in 1841. Greg Anderson describes the Opera: “Norma, a priestess facing battle against the Romans, secretly falls in love with a Roman commander, and together they have two illegitimate children. When he falls for another woman, she reveals the children to her people and accepts the penalty of death. The closing scenes and much of the concert fantasy reveal Norma begging her father to take care of the children and her lover admitting he was wrong.” No doubt, the libretto resonated with Liszt’s personal life, all of his three children were illegitimate and not sanctioned by the church. Liu played with great nuance, her operatic musical lines showed great purpose and destination, and she handled the many repeated notes with superb skills. Her Norma never got “bangy,” and she always found the melody within the many notes. She adhered fairly closely to the marked tempos, some pianists take more freedom with rubatoes.

After the intermission Liu perfectly captured Chopin’s elegance in the First Ballade 1^st Ballade (G minor). The coda is insanely difficult, and Liu not only took it very fast, but very accurately. All pianists struggle in finding the right emotional tone for the first four measures, and Liu could have done more here.

Liu’s rendition of the Nocturne in G Major, Opus 37 No. 2, was very Chopinesque: effervescent, with serene longing and lovely rubatos. The four Mazurkas Opus 17 sounded just wonderful, Liu really understands their whimsical nature. She also evinced a great deal of heart and understanding. The fourth Mazurka of the Opus 17 set felt especially poignant, achingly beautiful, Liu cast a hypnotic spell.

Liu really hit her stride with the closer, the Variations on “Là ci darem la mano” (There we will give each other our hands) from Don Giovanni, Opus 2. Chopin wrote it in 1827, when he was only 17 years old. Upon hearing it, Robert Schumann famously declared: “Hats off, gentlemen, a genius.” Liu produced superb contrasts in the different variations, executing with great speed and accuracy without sacrificing voicing and shaping of the melodies. She tossed off runs as soft as a breeze; her loud high notes never turned strident.

The audience summoned Liu back again and again for three encores. The first, a light-hearted Chopin Ecossaise, the second the famous Chopin “Black keys” Etude Opus 10 No. 5. The audience’s wild applause summoned her back for a third encore, which showed another talent of hers: for composition, as this was her own arrangement of a piece of an American composer, about whom, she explained later, she would prefer to remain mysterious.

Sibylle Barrasso is a long-time piano student of Robert Poli. She has played in piano competitions in Pickman Hall and Chicago, is on the board of directors of the Boston Piano Amateurs Association and has played for audiences in the Boston Symphony Cafe since 2010.