Jung Soo Yun - Richard Tauber Prize recital, with Joseph Middleton A recital in two parts; we nearly left after the first, because this tenor's songs from Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin and Richard Strauss' Opus 10 were so lack-lustre that one fell to wondering about this prize and its Society, which provided only a small audience at Wigmore Hall. The tone was dry and unlovely and his posture was not encouraging, with a right hand clutching the frame of the piano nervously and continuously for the full half hour. After necessary refreshment Yun returned another man and another singer, with a bright open operatic tenor, obviously more comfortable in Tosti ballads, native Korean folk songs, and decent accounts of Gounod and Tchaikovsky arias than in German lieder & French chansons; the latter selection also enlivening Joseph Middleton's always accomplished accompaniments. Richard Tauber's Dein ist mein ganzes Herz paid due tribute to a favourite tenor of my youth, marking the last Richard Tauber Prize in its present format. Peter Grahame Woolf See a more sympathetic review at http://www.planethugill.com/2013/07/jung-soo-yun-richard-tauber-prize.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PlanetHugill+%28Planet+Hugill%29 |