I had not heard Kun Woo Paik play Fauré before‚ and could not help noticing before I began listening that his timings for nearly all of these pieces are conspicuously slower than normal. And indeed‚ at the beginning of several of them my initial feeling was that he was simply too slow. I seldom retained that impression to the end: Kun Woo Paik has a deep feeling for long‚ singing line‚ his control of rubato is masterly and the sheer sound that he draws from a Steinway is ravishing. There are a few moments‚ it is true‚ where slow tempo brings with it a touch of heaviness‚ but I only found this at all disconcerting in the Sixth Nocturne. Some might argue that the tone is rather too full in certain pages of the 13th Nocturne‚ but the emotional burden of this music is so great that one can hardly complain at a pianist registering it. By the time I reached the Ballade‚ played last on this disc‚ my annotation of ‘slightly slow?’ was very soon joined by ‘and why not?’. Kun Woo Paik is also very good at deep but reticent emotion‚ at brilliantly nimble finger­work and at conveying how very taken he is by this phrase or this figuration. There are so many passages in this music where one can or should sense Fauré looking over the pianist’s shoulder hoping that this idea will give him as much pleasure as it gave the composer; one certainly does sense it in this artist’s playing. The recorded sound (not a studio‚ but the Brangwyn Hall in Swansea) is very beautiful indeed. With those – I would say amply justified – slow tempos I suppose one must call this rather personal Fauré; but how unthinkable impersonal Fauré would be. Warmly recommended.