Admirers of Han-Na Chang won’t be disappointed here; for someone still only in her mid-teens, she plays not only with astonishing virtuosity (listen to the end of the cadenza in the D major Concerto’s first movement!) but with a purity and poise that many fully mature artists would envy. Sinopoli and the Dresden orchestra give her a top-class accompaniment, with notably stylish, lithe violin-playing, and prominent oboes and horns taking full advantage of the wonderful parts Haydn writes for them. And the recorded sound has a luminous clarity that shows the performers in their very best light. The Overture of Lo speziale is a happy choice as fill-up. This is another lively, stylish performance.
I found it most instructive to compare the cello concertos with Truls Mork’s recordings. Mork is more urgent and passionate, and shapes the music more decisively. This approach is especially persuasive in the first two movements of the C major; each phrase comes to life in a very natural, communicative way, whereas Chang, reluctant to shade off at the end of phrases, and with exaggerated dynamic contrasts hasn’t, I think, quite grasped the essence of the music. But in her poised yet brilliant account of this concerto’s finale and still more in the first movement of the D major, where, at an unhurried speed, she identifies strongly with the lyrical character, she sounds thoroughly at home in the eighteenth century.'