Chung dispatches her 19 souvenirs with endearing candour and a refreshing lack of affectation. Dvorak’s Humoresque is served in Wilhemj’s arrangement, which, as offered here, sounds a good deal more capricious than the more familiar – and sweeter – Kreisler version (more like Dvorak’s solo piano original, too). The Four Romantic Pieces are intimate and lightly brushed, though I thought Chung sounded just a little impatient with the last piece (a rapt Larghetto).
Szymanowski’s fragrant Nocturne sings to a shimmering accompaniment, recalling Roxana’s exotic vocal lines in King Roger, though there’s an upbeat, quasi-Spanish central section and a highly flammable Tarantella to follow that puts the excellent Itamar Golan through his paces. Stravinsky is represented by the wistful ‘Dithyrambe’ from his Duo concertant, played with an appropriate sense of stillness, and Bach by an expressive account of the ubiquitous ‘Air’ from the Third Orchestral Suite. The Kreisler group is memorable more for its wit than its warmth, and while Chung bows a smooth line in the Wilhelmj-Heifetz Ave Maria re-hash, Golan’s rippling arpeggios are a little too prominent and the coda is surely one of the most tasteless moments in the violinist’s ‘encore’ repertory.
It’s nice to have Rachmaninov’s Op. 6 pieces on board, the first sounding like a near-relation of Schumann’s D minor Piano Trio, the second – a racy ‘Hungarian Dance’ – performed here with genuine swagger.
Chung’s tone suddenly thins at 2'17'' into the Thais ‘Meditation’ (a colouristic effect?); Beau soir is suitably smoky, Le petit Ane blanc suavely charming and Golan’s perky playing 4'06'' into Zigeunerweisen confirms that he is no ‘mere’ accompanist. Chung herself makes an elegant gipsy fiddler, though when it comes to left-hand pizzicatos, she’s no Vengerov.
With excellent sound and a generous playing time, this disc makes for a relaxing – and at times extremely rewarding – listening experience. To compare Chung with her feted virtuoso forebears (many of whom of course excelled in this very repertoire) would serve little purpose save to underline how differently we do things nowadays. '