Lunaris

First, Let’s Clear Up Three Errors and One Truth

Chinese-language write-ups of this album are a mess, so let me sweep the mines first.

Some call him “Liu Yutong” — wrong. His name is Bruce Xiaoyu Liu, a Canadian pianist of Chinese descent born in Paris in 1997.

Some call him the “2025 Tchaikovsky Competition gold medalist” — wrong. He won the gold medal at the 18th International Chopin Competition in 2021, at just 24, playing Chopin in the finals.

And some say this album is “Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade plus Ravel” — the most absurd error of all. Scheherazade is an orchestral suite; this is a solo piano album. The two cannot fit inside the same piano.

The truth: this is a concept album about “night and moonlight.” Deutsche Grammophon released it on August 7, 2026, recorded at Berlin’s Teldex Studio, and Presto picked it as an album of the week.

Two Textures of Moonlight

The album opens with Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 27 No. 2. Liu knows this piece so well he dares to hold each phrase-ending half a beat longer — like a moonlit stroller who suddenly stops to look at the lake.

Then comes Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata. Moonlight appears twice on one album: Chopin’s, tender and inward; Beethoven’s, meditative and profound. But Liu’s truly brilliant programming move is placing the “Waldstein” later — that is dawn, the moment the moon sets and the sun rises. The whole album becomes a single night: dusk, deep night, daybreak.

The Moons You Didn’t Expect

If it were only Chopin plus Beethoven, this would be just another moonlight compilation. Its real ambition hides in the second half.

Debussy’s Rêverie dissolves like mist; Bach’s prelude (in Siloti’s arrangement) stands solemn as a moonlit chapel; Ligeti’s “Fanfares” suddenly switches the rhythm on, like the moon shattered by clouds and reassembled.

Mompou’s two “Au clair de la lune” settings are the most intimate moments. The Catalan composer writes moonlight like smoking alone on a balcony — solitary, murmuring to himself. Cage’s Dream (1948) is lighter still, nearly weightless, as though the keys were pressed by moonlight rather than fingers.

Scriabin’s Fourth Sonata is the album’s summit. Two movements, Andante into Prestissimo volando, marked “flight” — no longer moon-gazing but moon-bound, flying ecstatically toward the light.

The digital edition adds two more: Hahn’s Hivernale and Schoenberg’s Op. 19 No. 1. The CD holds seventeen tracks; digital and vinyl hold nineteen.

From the Chopin Competition to DG Exclusive

Liu took the Chopin gold in 2021 and signed exclusively with DG in March 2022. His first studio album Waves (2023 — Rameau, Ravel, Alkan) won the Opus Klassik newcomer award; the second was The Seasons (2024); and this Lunaris is the third.

Three albums in three years, each with a concept, none repeating the last. That’s rare in today’s record business — most young pianists debut with a “Chopin-plus-Liszt showpieces” grab bag. Liu refuses.

Taiwan Has Met Him

On December 12 and 13, 2024, Liu gave two recitals at Taipei’s National Concert Hall — his first visit to Taiwan. If you were there, you probably remember the encores: he played them like a big kid finally allowed to play with his favorite toys.

He’s busy next: Shanghai with Pappano and the LSO on September 16, the North American Lunaris tour from mid-October to early November, and the New York Philharmonic on December 3.

The moon rises every night. But a moon like this comes around only a few times a year.