Young Artists Make Back-to-Back Debuts at the Philharmonic

For the past two weeks, the New York Philharmonic’s podium has been occupied by Santtu-Matias Rouvali, a Finnish conductor who with a little spontaneity and a lot of sprezzatura offers a jolt to whatever orchestra he encounters.

But that’s not what has made these two weeks interesting.

Rouvali, after all, led multiple programs last season, making a long-awaited return after his debut in late 2019. Having proven himself as a guest worth keeping around, he has become comfortably part of the orchestra. His latest residency, though, has been more notable for the appearances of other artists: the violinist Esther Yoo and the much-hyped pianist Bruce Liu, both in their debuts, who with any luck will be just as present as Rouvali in the years to come.

Liu’s Philharmonic debut at David Geffen Hall on Thursday followed a stop last season at Carnegie Hall, where he performed works by Chopin in a nod to his winning the top prize at the International Chopin Piano Competition in 2021. As if to signal that he wasn’t at all nervous about the sudden spotlight, at Carnegie he blazed past the concert’s two-hour running time, returning to the stage for no fewer than seven encores.

There was some showmanship, too, in his appearance with the Philharmonic, as the soloist in Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” In the opening, his large hands, redolent of the composer’s, sprang high above the keyboard, more than was necessary; but as he settled into the performance, mannerisms like that cooled, and Liu revealed the depth behind his theatricality.

He played with feline agility and lightness of touch. But, as a cat can be lethally powerful when necessary, he can also take on a muscularity that turns sensitive phrasing into tintinnabular resonance. That nimble versatility also made for fluid shifts between limpid precision and alluring rubato, between concerto virtuosity and the recital-like intimacy with which he opened the famous 18th Variation. (Liu demonstrated something similar in the pairing he made with his encores: crowd-pleasing dazzle in Liszt’s “La Campanella” and meditative warmth in Alexander Siloti’s B-minor transcription of Bach’s Prelude in E minor.)