Judging from this CD’s cover photo, the Korean-born Canadian pianist Wonny Song looks as young as he sounds, at least in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. He breaks up the opening Promenade’s steady processional pulse with a jarring and gratuitous breath pause and tinkers with the dynamics, while his arch rubatos in Gnomus convey not one whit of the music’s creepy subtext. (Question: Why does he launch into Gnomus’ tumultuous final two-handed run by playing the first note detached and staccato? Answer: Because he can). Nor does Song command the dynamic range and scintillating intensity that more seasoned Pictures interpreters bring to the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks and Limoges Marketplace. In fairness, the final two pieces gain confidence and long-lined continuity as they progress.
Stylistically speaking, the Rachmaninov selections find Song on more congenial and idiomatic ground. Granted, his measured basic tempo and hairpin dynamics in the Corelli Variations theme forecasts similar wandering through the slower, more lyrical variations to come. However, Song instinctively and positively responds to the score’s coloristic possibilities and harmonic richness. The busy, climactic variations, for instance, stand out for Song’s easy grasp of the composer’s big chords. Song’s sensitive and flexible reading of the Vocalise makes me curious about how he’d handle Rachmaninov’s Preludes or Etudes-Tableaux.
