MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


 
REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline


The English Viola
Arthur BLISS (1890 - 1975)
Viola Sonata (1933) [26:11]
Frederick DELIUS (1862 - 1934)
Violin Sonata No.3 (1930) (arr. L.Tertis (1932)) [16:30]
Frank BRIDGE (1879 - 1941)
Allegro appassionato (1907) [2:17]; Serenade (1903) [2:41]; Souvenir (1904) [4:00]; Gondoliera (1907) [4:06]; Pensiero (1908) [4:15]; Norse Legend (1905) [3:33]; Berceuse (1901) [3:34]
Enikö Magyar (viola); Tadashi Imai (piano)
rec. 10, 11, 13 July 2009, Phoenix Studios, Budapest. DDD
NAXOS 8.572407 [67:52]

Experience Classicsonline

This disc has Lionel Tertis stamped all over it. The pioneering violist was the inspirer of Bliss’s hugely impressive sonata. At the private first performance, which he gave, Solomon was his piano partner for whom William Walton turned the pages. Soon after that Rubinstein was sight-reading the piano part for a BBC broadcast with Tertis. The Bliss sonata has had expensive tastes in pianists - not to mention violists.

And now we have Hungarian-born and now London-resident Enikö Magyar to add to the roster. She was a student of, amongst others, Martin Outram with whom she presumably studied the sonata. Perhaps he even introduced her to it. He’s already recorded it for Naxos [8.555931] on an all-Bliss chamber disc, so Naxos is now sporting two competing versions, though the element of ‘competition’ is lessened by the repertoire involved in each disc.

In any case there are strong points of divergence in their performances. She very properly has her own ideas, and these are not simply to do with tempo. On that point she is certainly slower in the first two movements than Outram, but also tends to sculpt phrases rather more dramatically and succulently. She has splendid tonal depth and this gives her sense of projection an almost theatrical dimension. She plays moreover with flexible metre, but stresses the moderato element of the first movement in particular, where Outram moves things on that bit more tersely. It’s this degree of passionate commitment that I admire so much in her playing. The slow movement’s opening and closing pizzicato are draped in melancholia, for instance, and paragraph points are always etched and alive. The vigorous figuration of the scherzo was ideally suited to Tertis’s bold, masculine and dashing virtuosity and she launches its dynamism with superb aplomb. So too the finale, ripely done, and which ends sonorously and decisively. This is an excellent performance on its own terms. Collectors will have their old-timers on the shelves: Forbes and Foggin (a big favourite of mine, recorded on three Decca 78s), Downes and Cassini (Revolution), Vardi and Sturrock (he made another recording with Weinstock too), Jones and Hampton [LIR011], Lederer and Murray - as well as Outram and James Rolton. No Tertis though, which is a great loss. My hunch is that he would have taken it far faster even than Outram. Bliss always admired Tertis’s sense of ‘flow’ and this was a characteristic of his playing.

But we have no Tertis recording, and nor do we of his own arrangement of Delius’s Third Violin Sonata. This followed a few years after his similar work with Elgar’s Cello Concerto. It works perfectly well and is susceptible to breadth of phrasing and the rich exploration of the viola’s more melancholic tonal qualities. Enikö Magyar and Tadashi Imai - whose success in this disc, and in particular his splendid accomplishment in the taxing Bliss sonata - play the Delius in the modern manner; quite slowly and with rich cantilena. They bring out its autumnal, resigned qualities all the while imbued with a vibrant sense of its structure. What I miss is the contrast between moods. The central movement could be more capriciously drawn. Here the B section is very serious-minded. It’s of a piece with the stance as a whole but I think it lacks contrast. So too the finale, which most violinists these days don’t take con moto enough. The danger in this sonata is that of a ‘too samey’ tempo.

The disc is fleshed out by Bridge’s lovely morceaux. Only two, surprisingly enough, were written for viola - which was Bridge’s own instrument. He made a number of 78s as a quartet player. The Allegro appassionato and Pensiero are the original viola pieces - the former flowing and almost ecstatic, the latter warmly textured. The Berceuse is a songful envoi. They’re all characterised excellently by this enterprising duo.

Though this is not actually a tribute disc to Tertis it can serve as an adjunct to his argumentative but proselytizing genius for his instrument. More germane to this review it announces another highly impressive young violist and duo. Finally the Bliss recording is a strongly recommendable one and the Delius in its viola incarnation is rare.

Jonathan Woolf

see review by Bob Briggs 


 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.