This seals it
for the Tertis collector. I’d been wondering aloud in reviews
when someone would get to grips with his acoustic Vocalions
and here they are. This, allied to the complete electrics,
also on Biddulph, and John White’s imminent book means that
times have never been better for admirers of the pioneering
British violist.
These are some
of the earliest examples of a comprehensive body of chamber
music, recorded by established forces. The trios are performed
by two thirds of the Chamber Music Players trio. The pianist
here is Frank St. Leger, later a supremo at the Met in New
York, but here a versatile collaborator at the keyboard. Tertis
and Sammons’s usual colleague, William Murdoch, didn’t join
his string colleagues when they signed for Vocalion, remaining
loyal to Columbia instead. And the trios are all subject to
the usual abridgments as was the inevitable corollary of acoustic
recording – and we shouldn’t be so censorious of this when,
even today, I see that Bowen’s Viola Concerto, a work dedicated
to and first performed by Tertis himself, has just been recorded
badly cut.
The Mozart trios,
obviously in Tertis’s own viola transcriptions, are notable
for Sammons’s singing lyricism and masculine expression and
for the well-established balance between the two three. St.
Leger is more the classicist anchoring the two romanticists.
Portamenti are lavish and pervasive, vibrati well matched,
the pungent wit of the finale of K542 – a work they were to
return to electrically – charmingly realised. Their Schubert
is songfully lyric, what remains of it that is, even though
naturally things such as the slow movement can’t help but
feel rushed. The Dvořák Bagatelles offer some unusual
repertoire for the time; still more so the drastically cut
Dunhill trio. This was something Tertis had premiered with
Marjorie Hayward and the composer in 1912 so this 1920 recording,
whilst naturally representing only a partial view of it, does
still show two things – firstly the kind of repertoire Tertis
proselytised and secondly the adventurous spirit of Vocalion,
when it was in the mood. No other company dared to essay the
Quartets of Elgar, Kreisler and Waldo Warner at around this
time, all entrusted to the London String Quartet and all duly
issued by Vocalion.
The second CD
gives us a good mix of sonatas, duos and obbligato work. The
Handel-Halvorsen prefigures the later Columbia electric that
Sammons and Tertis made, the most heroic solo violin-viola
record ever made. This one is cut and features some hilarious
tempo doubling. Fans of the two string players may recall
the incident when they played together at a wartime soiree
in front of such illustrious guests as Ivor Novello and Somerset
Maugham. As the bombs fell in the distance Sammons and Tertis
ignored all expression marks, played all repeats, and at triple
forte, until the bombing raid passed. We have outstanding
tonal blend between the two in the Fuchs duet, and grand expression
in the Handel.
The Grieg Sonata
was one of many that Tertis transcribed. Here the pianist
is Ethel Hobday, wife of the gifted Alfred Hobday, Tertis’s
great predecessor as holder of the title of Britain’s leading
violist. Ethel Hobday was also Sammons’s mother in law, he
having married the formidable Olive. Rugged but expressive
and with room for dynamic variance this is an important document
of Tertis’s playing. Yes, the registral change in the finale
always strikes me as deeply unconvincing, but this is bold,
manly, moustache-bristling playing, excellently anchored by
Hobday, an elite player. Their Brahms Sonata is no less so
and actually preferable to Tertis’s later electric recording
with the uneven Harriet Cohen. The massively declamatory finale
is perhaps the high point, even more so than the inward cultivation
of the sonata’s expressive heart. The second disc ends with
what are the most difficult to find of Tertis’s Vocalions,
the obbligato sides he made with Zoia Rosovsky. She had a
certain cachet at the time though you’d be hard pressed to
find anyone now who knows the name. Together they made three
sides. Even Biddulph has apparently been sent a dub of Leroux’s
Le Nil, so tricky is it to trace. She has a
big mezzo tinge and is most convincing in the Duparc. Tertis
is well balanced against the voice, thankfully.
Discs three and
four give us encore and solo fodder and some of Tertis’s most
dashing performances. Some he was later to remake – like the
Kreisler Praeludium and Allegro, still surely
one of the most gallant and stunning viola discs on record
– whilst others remain only in these acoustic discs. The constantly
alive vibrato is ever evident, the rich portamenti too. His
Fauré Elegie has a Casals-like nobility, though as
ever his Après un rêve is too loud and unvaried. One
of my favourites is his recording of his friend Kreisler’s
Chanson Louis XIII with its gracefulness and charm.
Smaller things such as the Thomé Sous la feuillee are
done with passionate commitment though the Mendelssohn Songs
without Words have a wonderfully burnished simplicity.
All of these sides deserve repeated rehearing; they all offer
revelatory experiences.
The booklet features
a well-produced picture of a Vocalion record label, a less
well produced one of Sammons, a regrettably fuzzy and unreadable
reproduction of a full page advertisement from Musical
America, and a photograph of a Royal Academy of Music
Sight-Singing Prize awarded to Tertis, which I think I saw
advertised on eBay not so long ago.
There is full
discographic information and interesting, if I think in the
main somewhat speculative, recording dates. I’m not sure that,
in the absence of the recording ledgers (which are lost),
one can date them with this degree of accuracy but the dates
do seem plausible to me. A small discographic point; Tertis
always claimed that one of his own favourites among his recordings
was Kreisler’s La Chasse. Checking an on-line
discography of the violist – I noticed that this was issued
in two takes recorded under the same issue number, a common
enough practice, but that the sessions were separated by as
much as a year, something I’d never been aware of. For those
of a collecting bent it’s heard here in the more commonly
encountered take, 02112.
And so to the
transfers. I wasn’t so pleased with David Hermann’s work on
the complete Columbias for Biddulph. Here he’s had a trickier
job. But I still remain unconvinced. Listening to my 78s –
I have all these recordings bar the three Rosovsky sides –
I find that whilst the notorious Vocalion scratch has been
well attended to the upper frequencies are once again the
direct casualty. This compresses the sound. There is audible
room ambience in these Vocalions when listened to through
sympathetic playback but none comes through on these transfers.
There is more ambience and timbral variety in these discs
than you will find in these transfers of them.
Still, I don’t
want to end carping. Less than ideal though they may be, you
will still find a huge amount to admire in the performances.
And Biddulph’s commitment to restoring all Tertis’s commercial
discs to the catalogue has been immense. To them goes the
credit. Should they come across other scraps of Tertis’s playing
we would be in their debt if they released a supplementary
volume. There’s a live broadcast of Walthew’s Mosaics
doing the rounds. There may be an as yet unidentified Tertis
cylinder – he said he made one. I’d wager it was on Clarion
or Sterling but who knows? Then there’s the Bach Double Concerto
that he and Sammons recorded in Tertis’s own arrangement for
violin and viola; it was never released by Vocalion and the
company went on to record d’Aranyi and Fachiri in the authentic
version. Until then this set remains a cornerstone collection.
Jonathan Woolf
BUY NOW
Crotchet
ArchivMusik
(USA sales only)
Lionel Tertis (viola)
