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Thinking of string
players generally the British Violin
School earns a chapter in Schwarz’s
Great Masters of the Violin and runs
from Carrodus, John Saunders and W.E.
Henley to John Dunn, Marie Hall, Isolde
Menges, Arthur Catterall and Albert
Sammons (which takes us to those born
around 1892.). And the viola lineage
has long been secure: Alfred Hobday,
Lionel Tertis, William Primrose, Frederick
Riddle and Watson Forbes are the most
pre-eminent. But what of the Cello School?
You may recall Beatrice Harrison for
her Elgar, Delius and Nightingales and
Du Pré of course nearer our own
time. But in between? Maybe Pini and
William Pleeth, though for the non-specialists
the latter probably more as a teacher
than as a recording artist. Certainly
not a great number, at least not until
the present day when we have Lloyd-Webber,
Isserlis, Watkins, Cohen, Hugh, Clein,
Baillie, Wallfisch, Welsh and many more,
a number happily here on the second
disc of this set.
So it’s apt to salute
the Cellistic Tradition in a two-part
survey, which takes in Historical and
Modern in pretty even measure. We begin
with one of the doyens of post-War British
cello playing, Douglas Cameron. As well
as being an authoritative and famous
teacher (five of his students are scattered
throughout the discs) he was a superb
principal and chamber player. We hear
him in a snatch from the William Tell
Overture, which despite the documentation
here actually has a different Decca
number. The unknown conductor was actually
Karl Rankl and the disc was made on
8th February 1945 (not 1948
– apologies for anorakish pedantry).
A near contemporary was John Barbirolli
here heard in one of his National Gramophonic
Society discs with pianist Ethel Bartlett
– with plenty of portamenti, great expression,
and not too agile a technique. W.H.
Squire follows, a Herefordshireman and
dedicatee of Fauré’s Sicilienne.
He made numerous sides for HMV and Columbia
and was playing as late as the 1940s,
having earlier established a recording
trio with Sammons and Murdoch. On disc
he was often, as here, partnered by
Hamilton Harty and we can admire Squire’s
luscious portamenti and emotive generosity
in this little evergreen. The disc sounds
in fine shape though I’d rather Cello
Classics had gone instead for the Sicilienne,
which he did record.
Beatrice Harrison’s
Delius Elegy with Fenby has made previous
appearances so perhaps one of her less
tractable 78s could have been substituted
and Cedric Sharpe’s Popper Polonaise
has already been used on Pearl’s ‘Cello
on Record’ series. Sharpe was the victim
of one of the funnier BBC gags when,
having mucked about once too often in
rehearsal, he was privately reprimanded
by the orchestra’s manager who told
Adrian Boult afterwards: ‘I have spoken
to C Sharpe and he is now D Flat’. Sharpe
was in fact an old hand, member of the
Philharmonic Quartet during the First
War alongside Eugene Goossens and Arthur
Beckwith and a regular in the Sammons-Tertis-Murdoch
Chamber Players group. He plays the
Popper with charm and fine rhythm and
a real dash of nobility. Though Beatrice
Harrison was to become known as one
of the premier British cellists of her
generation it was Felix Salmond who
gave the first performance of the Elgar
Concerto (and of some of the chamber
works as well). His influence in America
was abiding and his importance to American
cellists hard to overstate. He was yet
another in the Sammons-Tertis-Murdoch
group of elite British chamber players;
regrettably he left behind no recordings
with them. His Grieg is beautifully
measured and lyric, even if the copy
used is slightly scuffy. Lauri Kennedy
followed Salmond and Sharpe into the
Chamber Players and it’s one of the
great injustices of recording history
that this group left behind no gramophone
recordings. His Popper shows why he
was so admired – the technique is rock
solid, the tone alluring, and the musicianship
unquestionable. Anthony Pini is here
with an ensemble supporting him in Saint-Saëns
with registral leaps and finesse and
so is Reginald Kilbey, captured in his
early 1970s. Section leaders and lighter
players are part of the very fabric
of cellistic life and it’s right that
Kilbey takes his place here. Pleeth
appears with Edmund Rubbra in the Vivace
flessibile from the latter’s Sonata,
a BBC Transcription recording from 1959.
They were old friends and colleagues,
having formed a Wartime trio and Pleeth’s
intense, sinewy tone and command of
dynamic gradations suits Rubbra’s music
perfectly. The whole Sonata has been
preserved and it would be good to hear
it all. The notes speak of Alan Dalziel’s
Fauré as "passionate"
and this is one of the few occasions
I’d part company with Michael Jameson.
The early Du Pré was passionate
but I hear in Dalziel grave nobility
and a tightly controlled vibrato – attractively
so. The tragic Hungarian-born Thomas
Igloi is here in the slow movement of
the same composer’s Second Sonata, taped
by the BBC the year before Igloi’s death
at the age of twenty-nine. He has the
span for it and the colour and one can
only mourn his unfulfilled promise.
Keith Harvey, student of Douglas Cameron,
is an experienced and adaptable musician
as this arrangement of the Debussy shows
with its exotic patina – and he’s also
a record collector, which is even more
in his favour. The first disc ends with
the piece plugged on the cover, Du Pré’s
recently discovered Rubbra Soliloquy.
This is dated to 1965 but a bit of detective
work shows it was recorded on 27 June
in Great Bedwynn Church, Marlborough
with Christopher Finzi’s Newbury Strings
Players and some reinforcements – it’s
actually scored for strings, two horns
and timpani. Any unearthed Du Pré
is exciting – and she was probably put
onto the Rubbra by her teacher William
Pleeth (in fact a private recording
of Pleeth playing it does exist.) This
brooding work responds well to her intense
vibrato usage and tonal qualities. She
catches the vehemence at its heart and
explores the often-misunderstood schema
of the piece with visceral temperament.
Given the rarity value of this performance
one shouldn’t be too critical of the
sound though it is true that the orchestral
sound is mushy and indistinct and Du
Pré is unduly spot lit; it’s
sometimes hard to make out if there
are two horns there at all. As a performance,
for all the passionate articulacy of
her performance, I tend to favour the
de Saram recording with Handley – he’s
more incisive over tempo and his natural
restraint pays rich rewards. But one
must be grateful for this harvest, this
unexpected Du Pré bounty.
There is less to say
about the second disc. Most of the cellists
are still with us; some indeed are –
let’s take Paul Watkins – mere striplings
in comparison with the venerable old
timers. And a number of the works are
extracted from available commercial
discs. It’s good that Norman Jones and
Denis Vigay are showcased in their orchestral
solos – these fine players more than
deserve it especially as the opportunities
for solo recordings are few. Derek Simpson
turns in a neat Allegretto from the
Arpeggione Sonata with that most welcoming
of accompanists, Ernest Lush, whom Sammons
valued higher as a string accompanist
than Gerald Moore. Valuable to have
Douglas Cummings’ Bach – aristocratically
played – and then we are on to some
taxing repertoire. Moray Welsh copes
splendidly with the Dutilleux, Wallfisch
turns in a Castelnuovo-Tedesco/Rossini
Figaro transcription, a piece with which
Heifetz used to sizzle the speakers
(did Wallfisch learn it from his teacher
Piatigorsky, a Heifetz confidante or
from the fiddler himself?) We get some
excerpts from recordings and broadcasts
that are well enough known; of them
I’d draw attention to an unascribed
(radio?) performance of Halvorsen’s
Theme and Variations for solo cello
given by intrepid Tim Hugh. This is
better known to string fanciers as the
Passacaglia from the Seventh Keyboard
Suite and has been virtuosically rejigged
here.
Well, that’s it. Twenty-nine
cellists and a wide range of pieces,
source material, accompaniments, sound
quality and stylistic imperatives. But
I’m greedy. Like Oliver, I want more.
So then let’s casually suggest it to
Sebastian Comberti of Cello Classics.
What about a follow-up, nicely transferred,
of the following; Peter Muscant (on
Aco), and princely C Warwick Evans of
the London Quartet, globe trotter May
Mukle on American Victor (she of the
MM Club near Oxford Circus) and Peers
Coetmore (Moeran’s wife) on Regal. While
we’re about it let’s summon up Joseph
Schofield on Marathon and let’s go right
back to W.E. Whitehouse even if only
as a cello obbligatist. Yes, van Biene
should be there as well – and Howard
Bliss, Arthur’s talented brother most
definitely; let’s dust off his Vocalions.
And then. ... well, maybe that’s enough
for now. Let’s be happy we have what
we have here. No need to be D Flat about
this one.
Jonathan Woolf
See also review
by Rob Barnett
