Fou Ts'ong (piano)

The music of Chopin has had a special place in the career of Fou Ts'ong. He took third prize at the 1955 Chopin Competition (behind Adam Harasiewicz and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and well ahead of the unplaced Tamas Vasary and Peter Frankl) and also took the special prize for playing mazurkas.

Today, Fou plays Chopin like an old master. And, like many an old master, he feels a familiarity with the music which allows him to take liberties, not all of which sounded to the music's advantage at the NCH last Thursday.

There was a certain circumspection in the Preludes of the first half, expressed through a sense of reserve about tempo. The result was that the necessary pattern of contrast within the set as a whole was diminished. To be sure, there were turns of phrase, voicings of chords, intimate colourings, which revealed a master at work. The limitations were in the bigger picture.

The larger pieces of the second half came across with greater solidity, but the playing here remained somehow more demonstrative than expressive. Even at its best and at its most personal, this was Chopin playing with a chill factor that remained simply too high.