Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849)
Piano Works
Fou Ts’ong (piano)
rec. live 1991-95
Pristine Audio PAKM092 [78]

Let me get you quickly to the heart of this CD. Pristine Audio’s website generously includes a complete track to listen to free of charge. This is Fou Ts’ong’s 1995 live performance of Ballade 4, the longest work on this CD and an electrifying experience.

I compare it with Idil Biret’s 1992 studio recording (Naxos 8.554527). Fou’s introduction is more like a bright fanfare than Biret’s smooth contentment. Fou articulates the first theme (tr. 9, 0:37) with precision and conviction, portraying a disciplined life with hints of sorrow. Biret brings a feeling of continual wandering. Fou’s second theme (4:27) progresses rigorously while his sensitive attention to its changes of rhythm savours the experience of hope this theme introduces. His fifth variation of the first theme with left and right hand in canon (7:08) is creepier and more urgent than Biret’s as the rhythmic convolutions increase, out of which the second theme reappears with, from Fou, a more rounded conviction to the main climax where Biret finds more frenzy. To the following calm Fou brings more creaminess where Biret is icily unworldly. Fou’s coda (10:30) is a hair-raising helter-skelter ride where Biret is more vehemently wild.

Otherwise, this CD’s key focus is the 24 Preludes, op. 28. I comment on the five I consider the finest, in reverse order. My fifth choice is Prelude 8 in F sharp minor. From Fou it’s an unremitting, perilous gallop from ever encroaching danger balancing the complex right and left-hand figurations’ interplay and with frenzied high register climax (tr. 17, 1:08). Fou’s recording of the Preludes published in 1980 is still available on Sony (G010004626970O, download only in UK). It’s easier to live with; the interplay between the hands more delicate and dynamic contrasts are more tellingly distinguished, but not molto agitato and the climax is underplayed. 

My fourth choice is the spontaneous delight of Prelude 3 in G major owing to its interdependent right-hand melody and left-hand pep of continuous semiquavers. Fou presents the latter as playful tumbling. Fou’s melody proves buoyantly carefree, gangly in its semiquavers yet gliding in the longer notes. In 1980 Fou is more serene, but I prefer 1995’s greater spring and character.

My third choice is Prelude 6 in B minor which shares two key features with Bach’s C major Prelude opening Book 1 of the Well-tempered clavier: a melody of sequences of arpeggios and late tension achieved by delaying the resolution (here tr. 15, 1:13) to the home bass note. Bach’s melody is peaceful, Chopin’s soulful. In 1980 Fou contemplatively nurtures every note. In 1995, timing at 1:54 against 1980’s 2:11, appreciably smooth phrasing and dynamic shading convey gloriously autumnal acceptance.

My second choice is Prelude 13 in F sharp. Fou’s sensitive fragility shows seemly hesitation in charting deep thoughts of unease but mixed with hope. The second strain (1:12) is quintessential Chopin longing to maintain happy recollections. Fou’s timing in 1995 at 2:39, as against 2:51 in 1980, has a weightier, more intensely present feeling and happier integration of left and right hands. 1980 is a smoother ride but for me its first climax too readily dies.

My first choice is Prelude 15 in D flat, the Raindrop. This has the fullest characterization and detailed backcloth. The raindrop is the ubiquitous left-hand quavers against the right-hand poignant sorrow of, I imagine, a little-loved, solitary lady. In the middle section (tr. 22, 1:22) the raindrop becomes a gathering storm allied to a march figure of, I suggest, a returning, bullying man. Yet the lady asserts her rights (2:39) and apparently succeeds with the return of her opening melody. But her loud entry on high B flat, articulated with poise by Fou (3:48), is more telling than her decorously submissive close. In 1980 Fou is more scrupulous with the soft opening melody and its return and brings more contrasted character to its second strain (0:23 in 1995), but I like that strain’s sadly assertive quality in 1995.

With the Berceuse you might never realize it’s a theme with fourteen variations but marvel at its variety. I find Fou at his best towards the end as he moves from the bristling trills and high-jinks of Variation 10 (tr. 8, 2:34) to Variation 11’s calm return of the original theme (2:53). Then how well Fou transitions from the smooth opening of Variation 12 (3:10) to its glistening high register close to usher in the magical change of harmony to G flat major in Variation 13 (3:28), like a summative gathering together of all experience. Variation 14 (3:58) begins with the return of the theme, but just the opening, as it’s then lovingly deconstructed to rest by Fou.

Again, I compare this with Biret in 1992. Her Variation 10 is, as generally, more shimmeringly virtuosic but her Variation 11 is less gentle, Variation 12 more thrust forward while Variation 13 and 14 lack Fou’s calm flow and shaping that will make baby sleep more easily.

Does anyone today play mazurkas as uninhibitedly as Fou? His Op. 56 No. 2 opens with the brash earthiness of unrefined folk music, yet he still points the humour of the subsidiary theme (tr. 2, 0:28) and makes the contrasting theme quite frilly (1:03), enabling the piece to quieten and muse more before the shock of the closing explosion of the fz chord. I compare this with Vladimir Feltsman recorded in 2018 (review). He’s altogether more cultivated, partly the difference between a studio recording with everything suavely tidied and Fou live, spontaneously catching the vivid, raw essence.

The other particularly attractive mazurka from the seven on this CD is Op. 67 No. 4. Fou’s prickly opening lightens in a hospitable subsidiary theme (tr. 4, 0:20) with moments of grace at the heights of the melody, while Fou’s contrasting theme (1:01) is indeed a skipping con anima. Feltsman, timing at 3:22 against Fou’s 2:20, favours the first element of the marking Moderato animato producing poised, beauteous sorrow; but I prefer Fou’s immediacy. 

Michael Greenhalgh

Availability: Pristine Classical

Contents & performance details
Mazurka in B, Op. 56, No, 1        
Mazurka in C, Op. 56, No. 2
Mazurka in C minor, Op. 56, No. 3
Mazurka in A minor, Op. 67, No. 4
Mazurka in F minor, Op. 68, No. 4
Mazurka in A minor, B. 134, Notre temps
Mazurka in A minor, B. 140. à Emile Gaillard
Berceuse in D flat, Op. 57
Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52
Preludes, Op. 28
rec. live 1991 (Queen Elizabeth Hall, London (Mazurkas, Op. 67, 68), 1992 (National Concert Hall, Dublin (Mazurkas, B134, B140, Berceuse), 1994 (QEH, Mazurkas, Op. 56), 1995 (Wigmore Hall, London, Ballade No. 4, Preludes, Op. 28)