Clarity as drama: Mao Fujita’s Mozart and Myung?whun Chung’s Fantastique

 

 

Seoul Arts Center’s Concert Hall hosted a programme of poised Classicism and fevered Romanticism: Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 25 in C major, with Mao Fujita as soloist, followed after the interval by Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique under Myung?whun Chung and the KBS Symphony Orchestra. It proved an evening in which clarity mattered as much as volume, and the most telling virtuosity came from a refusal to grandstand.

 

 

From the first bars of the Mozart, Fujita announced a pianist who writes in sentences rather than beating the bar line. His agogics recalled a typesetter’s kerning: micro?adjustments of space between notes and silences that allowed the C major paragraphs to fall into a legible, natural spacing. Phrases joined to the next with conversational logic; the tempo felt chosen by the music itself. Tone was limpid and centred, articulation clean without brittleness. If one thought of Clara Haskil’s inward candour or Maria Jo?o Pires’ ease, the resemblance was one of spirit, not imitation.

 

Fujita’s own cadenza amplified the point. He avoided treble glitter and instead stacked short motifs in the middle and lower registers, creating depth and a sense of architecture. The image that came to mind was a finger drawing on misted glass: a quick, playful sketch that vanishes and, in disappearing, reveals a clearer face of Mozart. The cadenza read as part of the movement’s rhetoric, not a framed showpiece; when the orchestra re?entered, the conversation resumed with disarming naturalness.

 

In the Andante, connection trumped display. With thin pedal and long breath, phrases bridged themselves, long?bowed but never sagging; extended motifs did not dissipate but found their way neatly into the next clause. The Rondo finale kept its feet on the ground. Fujita resisted the temptation to turn the dance into a spin; the theme stepped forward with composure, buoyed by inner rhythm rather than surface glitter. Above all, there was the sense of improvisatory play that concert routine too often irons away.

 

Berlioz brought a change of scale and weather. Chung opened R?veries ? Passions in broad perspective, drawing the line in long spans, and with that vantage came some turbulence: entries that didn’t quite settle, a mild looseness between strings, winds and brass. He did not force a correction; he let the instability stand as part of the story. Stability returned in Un bal, the waltz crisp and buoyant, woodwind colour draped over sleek strings. Sc?ne aux champs found surer pastoral footing. The cor anglais-oboe dialogue grew inwardly, then unfurled towards a climax where woodwind and brass crossed lines like operatic protagonists ? dramatic, yet still breathing the hush of the landscape.

 

 

In the Marche au supplice, discipline paid dividends. The tread was taut, brass and percussion thrilling yet never gaudy; restraint sharpened the horror. Songe d’une nuit du sabbat showed Chung at his boldest. He seemed to disassemble the movement into episodes to illuminate their edges before knitting them back together, a method that risked fragmentation but ultimately bound the nightmare with a surprisingly firm through?line.

 

Across the symphony, Chung’s contemplative aesthetic was clear: tension released and re?gathered, strands separated and patiently rewoven, the grand narrative kept in view. The KBS Symphony occasionally showed rough seams and flirted with disorder just when stakes rose, yet the players also answered their conductor with weight and commitment when required. If the Berlioz sometimes walked a tightrope, the Mozart spoke with luminous purpose. Together they made a persuasive case for clarity as a form of drama... and for listening to the space between the notes.

 

 

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출처: https://bachtrack.com/review-chung-fujita-mozart-berlioz-kbs-symphony-seoul-august-2025