A dud. The recording of the Turandot Suite indulges extremes of lethargy that render some of its movements almost unrecognizable. Few performances play all of the sections that Busoni wrote (Muti, for example, selects only six), and this one omits the eighth, “Despair and Resignation”. Gielen includes it (along with the optional parts for female chorus), getting through all nine pieces in 37 minutes, as opposed to more than 40 for the eight movements included here. I’m never a fan of timing comparisons as an interpretive watchword, but here they seem singularly relevant. In Altoum’s March, Gielen takes 3’50 compared to Wong’s 5’28. Why does this matter? Because the music begins with a series of phrases separated by pauses. Gielen’s tempo carries him through the pauses, creating the necessary momentum; Wong lets the music fall apart. With Turandot’s March Gielen needs 6’49 to make his points. Wong requires a whopping 10’10–indeed, it takes several seconds into the piece to hear that the music has begun at all, and the percussion timbres and rhythms are muddily captured. Wong also drags the finale out to 6’20, compared to Gielen’s 4’45. This is poor conducting, plain and simple, insensitive to the demands of music that needs all the liveliness it can get to overcome its defects: a tendency to monochrome orchestral colors and rhythmic monotony.
The Two Studies from Docktor Faust go much better, being at least relatively normal in duration (though this is still the droopiest Cortège around; even Sinopoli, no speed demon, beats Wong by about a minute). Alas, the piece isn’t played with any particular sensitivity. The Hong Kong Philharmonic is a decent orchestra, but on this outing its strings sound wiry and undernourished, and at climaxes the brass timbre turns strident and tends to overbalance the other sections. The situation may have been helped by less spotlit, warmer recorded sound than Naxos manages, but it hardly matters as Wong is back to his dreary, dull self in the Berceuse élégiaque, which lasts more than 11 minutes (compared to excellent Werner Andreas Albert on CPO: 9’26; or the perhaps overly swift Neeme Järvi on Chandos: 7’44 ). In short, it sounds like neither the conductor nor the orchestra knows or understands this music well enough to play it convincingly, let alone leave a recorded document of their collaboration. Naxos makes many wonderful discs, but this certainly isn’t up to its usual high standards. In the Turandot Suite and Doctor Faust music, Gielen (on Vox) is even less expensive and much more naturally recorded. So pass on this one.
