All These Lighted Things
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Romeo & Juliet Suite 1 & 2 Op 64 (excerpts) 
Elizabeth Ogonek (b.1989)
All These Lighted Things (three little dances for orchestra)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1932)
Daphnis et Chloé Suite No 2 M.57b
Antwerp Symphony Orchestra/Elim Chan
rec. 2023, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Antwerp, Belgium
Alpha Classics 1038 [71]

The Hong Kong-born, dual-national British conductor Elim Chan (b. 1986) is very much a rising star in the conducting firmament these days. Scheduled to conduct the Last Night of the Proms in 2025, she has also in the last couple of years made her debut with the Orchestre de Paris, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Staatskapellen of Berlin and Dresden, as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra of London. I believe I am correct in saying this is her second recording, after a Decca release from 2020 featured Ms Chan as accompanist to Benjamin Grosvenor in the Chopin Piano Concertos, so this is her debut disc as conductor only and is made with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, which she led between 2019-2024. As such, I must acknowledge her bravery and grace in including a new score in the programme of her debut disc, on this occasion by Elizabeth Ogonek (b.1989) titled ‘All These Lighted Things’, which is also the name of this new release.

Her set of ‘three short dances’ for orchestra was composed in 2017 for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when Ogonek was serving as its composer-in-residence and was premiered there by Riccardo Muti, no less, albeit to rather mixed reviews. The title, ‘All these lighted things’, is borrowed from a line in a poem by Thomas Merton and the music aims to be a reflection on joy and light, suggesting movement and physicality in imaginative ways, rather than more obvious dance-like forms. The musical language is hard to define; it is certainly unique and harmonically modern, but not abrasive, with orchestration that favours clarity, lightness, and transparency, with extensive use of a wide battery of percussion. Of the three movements, ‘Exuberant, playful, bright’, ‘Gently drifting, hazy’ and ‘Buoyant’, each one lasting just under five minutes, I found the second movement to be the most memorable: dark, mysterious and shadowy rather than “hazy” and if I need to confess to not feeling the urge to seek out any further scores of Elizabeth Ogonek, one cannot deny she is a fine orchestrator. To my ears, Ms Chan and her players give a committed performance of the work, sounding as if they believe in every note; as such, the results are a credit to all involved.

Of course, when one turns to the companion pieces by Prokofiev and Ravel, Ms Chan is entering the realms where the competition could not be greater. I thought she sounded most comfortable in the spikier, scampering rhythms of Prokofiev rather than the more sensual ecstasy of Ravel’s score where I found the opening of the Daphnis suite to be a little sleepy, lacking the prerequisite sense of wonder and ardour. Although technically the orchestra play well, with an apparent emphasis on transparency of sound perhaps at the expense of momentum, both coupled to what sounds like rather ungrateful acoustics of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Antwerp, I found the results to be disappointingly earthbound. For comparison, I played the same passage, ‘Lever de jour’, from Charles Dutoit’s celebrated recording of the complete ballet from 1980 [review]  and was dismayed to find sound from over forty years ago that absolutely glowed when compared to this newcomer; it’s astonishing to consider how little has advanced sonically during the interim years in which, if anything, things seem to have gone backwards. Both Dutoit, as well as Jean Martinon with the Chicago Symphony, in a celebrated account of the Second Suite only that I selected for additional comparison, take the same passage just as leisurely as Ms Chan, but both find far more passion and rapture in the music. To be fair, Ms Chan is much better in the closing danse générale, with its mounting excitement, but let’s be honest here, it is the opening of the Second Suite, ‘Daybreak’ that is one of the glories of twentieth century ballet music and if that disappoints then it really doesn’t matter how good the rest of the music making is.

The remainder of the disc is made up of excerpts from the first and second suites of Prokofiev’s ballet, Romeo and Juliet. Conductors have always faced something of a challenge with these since they were published in 1936, four years before the whole ballet was premiered, the delay being caused by an argument over the ending, which was originally planned to be a ‘happy’ one. This was not, as you may have thought, due to the Soviet authorities insisting on an ending that reflected a promised communist utopia where, instead, Romeo turns up a minute earlier than in Shakespeare’s play to find Juliet alive. Instead, as the composer himself later explained: “The reasons that led us to such a barbarism were purely choreographic. Living people can dance, but the dead cannot dance lying down.” This meant the absolute final number in the whole ballet, ‘The death of Juliet’ was not written until later and so ended up in the Third Suite, which was first performed as late as 1946

For this recording, Ms Chan provides her own selection from the ballet, consisting of eight numbers taken from the First and Second Suites, which are listed at the end of this review.  Towering over all recordings of this work, is Yevgeny Mravinsky’s live account from 1981 with the Leningrad Philharmonic, which, although it is just the Second Suite, contains a performance that elevates the music to such a level that you are inclined to believe that this is the greatest musical score ever written – or rather you would, had that release not been coupled with the conductor’s own selection from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker which is on the same exalted level [review]. Ms Chan is unable to match the grand tragedy of Mravinsky, nor is she able to match the characterisation of Neeme Järvi’s accounts of the three suites on Chandos [review], or the elan and panache of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti (which is better than the later Chicago remake on the orchestra’s own label). It is all very tidy, spic and span which you might appreciate more on a night out in the concert hall rather than at home where the shadows of past podium greats are sitting on your shelves, peering over your shoulder and jostling to be played instead.

This recording is available on all the usual formats, the compact disc presented in a cardboard slipcase complete with a booklet thoughtfully detailing all the members of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, as well as essays on the music in English, French, German and Dutch. Overall, this release is a fine achievement for Elim Chan; the new score by Elizabeth Ogonek is certainly worth a listen, but while the performances of Ravel and Prokofiev are worthy, they fall short of the greatest accounts. As always with recordings of the great classical scores, the great is the enemy of the good.

Lee Denham

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