I gave the highest praise to the phenomenally gifted Han-Na Chang’s first CD (which included a glorious account of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations) to which Rostropovich – who also conducted it – gave his enthusiastic imprimatur. She was 13 then; now she is 18, but that wonderfully spontaneous musicality which is hers by natural instinct (one thinks of the young Menuhin) has flowered with maturity. Her line is marginally firmer, and her ardour and sensibility bring phrasing which simply breathes with the music. The opening Faure Apres un reve begins with winning delicacy – its ardour never over-emotes, while the following Sicilienne is utterly delightful. But it is perhaps in Rachmaninov’s Vocalise that her singing line and subtle colouring touch the heartstrings most poignantly, although the much less familiar Respighi Adagio, Dvorak’s Klid and the Kim Elegy all have a disarmingly simple eloquence. Saint-Saens’ famous Swan has never glided by more guilelessly (yet there is a subtle dynamic control) and, not surprisingly, the slavic dolour of Tchaikovsky’s Nocturne is perfectly caught.
‘You can see that I am in love with all these pieces,’ Chang says in the notes, and her passionate advocacy of Bruch’s Ave Maria, ‘full of inner conflicts’, makes for a splendid coda to a highly enjoyable disc, with Slatkin a warmly supportive accompanist. And I must join Chang in a word of praise for Chris Hazell’s arrangements of about half the items, for ‘I think they reflect in a very honest way what the composers had in mind.’ The recording is beautiful, and has an ‘old-fashioned’ mellow EMI analogue-style ambience, but with the cello set forward and caught with total digital realism.'