Chee-Yun is such a fine violinist that a reservation or two will not hurt her. My main one hardly sounds like a reservation at all: does she not at times play too beautifully? Her range of colour and expression is so wide that once or twice I ungratefully wished that it might be even wider, to embrace a mere thread of pale tone, an intimate reflectiveness. While I am at it, the recording is not as kind as it might be to her excellent pianist, who is not always in perfect focus. And of Chee-Yun’s four discs so far, this is the third to offer no more than 50 minutes of music: will Denon stop being so stingy, please?
There; otherwise these are lovely performances, big and bold where necessary (often in the Szymanowski) but with no sense of strain or of the instrument being forced beyond its limits. Her quiet playing is beautiful, too, and she has a very wide dynamic range. In the Szymanowski, quite a difficult piece to hold together, her infectious enjoyment of its character and its contrasts unifies it quite admirably. Her tone in the Franck is sweet and ample, with no fear of digging firmly into the string in the second movement nor a sign of overstatement in the big gestures of the finale. It is generous, warm playing throughout, and richly enjoyable. Chee-Yun has plenty of rivals in the Franck and some of them, by understating, say more about it, but I have not heard the Szymanowski Sonata better done.
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