Chung Kuo Recasting

This was Kyung-Wha Chung's first recording, made when she was 22, just after her sensational London debut in the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the same orchestra and conductor. It is splendid. Only a young, radiantly talented player could make these two tired warhorses sound so fresh and vital; only a consummately masterful one could sail through their daunting technical difficulties with such easy virtuosity and perfection. Her tone is flawlessly beautiful, varied in color and inflection; she puts her technical resources entirely at the service of the music, giving every note meaning and honestly felt expression without exaggeration or sentimentality. The Tchaikovsky has charm, humor, sparkle; the slow movement is dreamy, wistful, and unmuted but subdued and inward. The Sibelius is dark and bleak but full-blooded, passionate, and intense. The orchestra sounds and plays better in the Sibelius.

Points on the Curve is Wang Chung's second album and first album since changing their name from Huang Chung and switching from Arista to the Geffen record label. It reached #30 on the Billboard 200 album charts on 14 July 1984 and features the #1 dance single "Dance Hall Days" and includes the hit singles: "Don't Let Go", "Don't Be My Enemy" and "Wait".

Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, completed about the same time as the Eroica Symphony, has suddenly become popular. One reason for its previous lack of popularity was the fact that three soloists cost three times as much as one normally expensive pianist, violinist or cellist. Another reason is that the work seeks to be a popular success, hence the Rondo alla Polacca with which it concludes. The piano part was intended for Beethoven’s patron and pupil, the Archduke Rudolph von Habsburg, and hence is less technically demanding than the composer’s usual pianistic writing, destined for himself. The standard CD (previously LP) of the work was a spectacular performance and recording made by EMI many years ago with David Oistrakh, Rostropovich and Richter with the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan. It was opulently played with the BPO’s luscious sound, but has little to do with what Beethoven would have heard in 1804. Another choice was the version of Stern, Rose and Serkin (Sony), less lush and not so high-powered as Karajan’s.

The incessantly catchy pop-funk number "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" illustrates the change in musical direction Wang Chung undertook on Mosaic. Backing away from the synth-laced pop/rock that characterized their earlier albums, the duo concentrated on dance-pop. Apart from the singles "Everybody Have Fun Tonight," "Let's Go!," and "Hypnotize Me," the band had trouble coming up with well-constructed pop songs, making Mosaic a checkered affair.

Not many versions of the Symphonie fantastique rival Myung-Whun Chung’s in conveying the nervously impulsive inspiration of a young composer, the hints of hysteria, the overtones of nightmare in Berlioz’s programme. He makes one register it afresh as genuinely fantastic. Some may well prefer the more direct, more solid qualities that you find in the new Mehta version, also well played, and recorded with satisfying weight, but the volatile element in this perennially modern piece is something which Chung brings out to a degree I have rarely known before, and that establishes his as a very individual, sharply characterized version with unusually strong claims.

Rather than play any single complete suite (of the three) that Prokofiev extracted from the complete ballet, Myung-Whun Chung makes his own selection of numbers, roughly following the plot line and including music representative of all the major characters. Although some other collections offer more music, this hour of Romeo and Juliet makes a satisfying presentation on its own. What makes the performance special is the spectacular playing of the Dutch orchestra. Frankly, it's never been done better. From the whiplash virtuosity of the violins to the bite of the trombones and the firm thud of the bass drum, this is the sound the composer must have dreamed of.

Chung’s performance blazes with energy and commitment, and is brilliantly backed up by Solti and the LPO. If the violinist errs at all, it is in trying to put swagger into the opening subject of the first movement by leaning into its accents and dishing out some rather heavy portamento. The result sounds unduly Romanticized. But in the rapt second movement Chung is exquisite, and she turns in an electrifying account of the finale, abetted by Solti’s energetic prodding of the orchestra.