Between them Biddulph
and Pearl are proving to be genuine
promoters of the art of William Primrose.
Pretty much all mid-period Primrose
is now available, sometimes in competing
transfers, and at first sight this might
seem to be the case here. The Handel
Concerto, a cheerful forgery by Henri
Casadesus, is not the same recording
as that on Pearl, which is the slightly
earlier, Walter Goehr-conducted London
performance. Biddulph’s is the 1946
remake conducted by Frieder Weissmann
who had a good recording career in Germany
before the War but left early for South
and North America. The later recording
catches Primrose’s tone well and I admired
his cantilena in the slow movement as
well as the rather perkier tempo he
adopted in the finale, which is preferable
to the sedate one with Goehr. And forgery
it may be but I still like the romanticised
Mendelssohnian winds in the finale.
Once attributed to W F Bach, the Sonata
in C minor, an attractive work whoever
composed it, is probably by Johann Gottlieb
Graun. With Pessl an adroit partner,
Primrose shows varieties of tonal and
bowing responses in a nobly patrician
reading.
The Benjamin triptych
is notable for the surety of understanding
between violist and Vladimir Sokoloff,
his most able pianist, and the depth
of rich and floated tone Primrose elicits
in the opening Elegy. His handling of
the quasi-cadential passages is tremendously
impressive in its command; pizzicati
spot on and in the Toccata, the rhythmic
nuances are conveyed with dazzling precision.
In Roy Harris’s Soliloquy and Dance
he has the advantage of the composer’s
wife as collaborator and she proves
a staunch and convincing exponent of
her husband’s music. One can but admire
their handling of the Soliloquy’s movement
from pensive withdrawal to powerful
and exultant self-assertion – and the
way these oppositional moods are coalesced.
Similarly they convey the wind gusts
and joie de vivre stomp of the Dance
with acid drive. There is little to
choose between this transfer and that
by Pearl. The disc concludes with four
more of Benjamin’s pieces recorded on
the same day as the Elegy, Waltz and
Toccata but released separately. Jamaican
Rhumba is gleeful and dashing, Matty
Rag soaked in jazz brio, Cookie a mix
of pensive and glamorous in alt playing
and From San Domingo is witty and subtly
coloured with its hints of the luxurious
and also a slight keening edge.
Notes once again in
this series are by Tully Potter. Rick
Torres’ transfers are on the button.
Another distinguished Biddulph release.
Jonathan Woolf
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BIDDULPH LAB 146 [64.28] 
