One can’t be certain
of course that Simone Lamsma has listened to Albert Sammons’s
classic 1935 recording of the Violin Sonata but I’d be surprised
if she hasn’t. The contours are very similar and more to the
point the expressive direction is very similar, unlike more
recent performances, almost all of which go in for point making
and drawn out drama to some degree or other. This then is
a direct, immediate and powerful performance, even faster
in the finale than Sammons, though a touch slower in the opening
movement. I admit it’s the way I like the Sonata and everything
I say should be construed in the light of my admiration and
appreciation of her sure instincts as to architecture and
internal contrastive devices. These were qualities Sammons
always displayed and nowhere more so than in this sonata,
the sequential writing of which is almost miraculously hidden
in his masterful playing.
However the Simone
Lamsma-Yurie Miura duo makes a powerful showing. There’s a
strong sense of engagement between instruments, with the piano
part avidly purposeful and very much more assertive than is
often the case. In the finale Miura really comes into her
own, presenting a great amount of detail with a clarity that
is sometimes obscured in other performances. She’s no wall-flower,
ringingly declamatory and powerful, and drawing the ear, maybe
not always to the advantage of balance.
Others violinists
have phrased more generously than Lamsma and there are times
in the first movement when she cedes to Vengerov, Midori,
Kennedy and McAslan – to name a prime quartet – in phrasal
and tonal sensitivity. I’m not quite sure she fully controls
the first movement passagework either which, for all her architectural
acuity, does come across as a touch stolid. Still she’s right
to take the slow movement at such a bracing tempo – it’s marked
Romance not Adagio after all – and the eagerness she imparts
to it is an antidote to more indulgent performers. And how
well she deals with the finale’s reminiscence of earlier material
– a real Sammons solution though ultimately lacking his artful
preparation.
The smaller works
contain a mix of familiar, less well known and downright obscure.
Of the familiar Salut d’amour benefits from a no-nonsense
sugar-free diet, Chanson de nuit features Lamsma’s
viola-rich lower strings and its companion Chanson de matin
is youthful and eager. La Capricieuse has a fine
lyric section but could do with more inflexion and vivacity
in the outer ones. She certainly explores the genre lyricism
of the other pieces with affection but not frivolity; a certain
pleasing seriousness pervades her exploration of them. Virelai
is charming and the Schumannesque aspects of the writing is
generously explored. I doubt whether Elgar would be the name
one would pick confronted by, say, the Idyll – inspired
by a Scottish jaunt – but it makes for comprehensively enjoyably
listening, however slight it may be.
This all-Elgar
disc will remind one of Nigel Kennedy’s Chandos offering,
one of his earliest recordings. It too presented the Sonata
coupled with smaller pieces. His concertante take on the sonata
is still highly impressive and I admire it, whilst preferring
other solutions. McAslan’s disc has just been re-released,
coupled with the Walton, slower than the Naxos duo but elegant.
Vengerov’s coupling on Teldec is the Dvořák Concerto,
unusual bracketing to say the least. Avoid Rostal (Testament),
Little (GMN) and Oliveira (Artek), but consider Bean/Parkhouse
on EMI Classics for Pleasure and coupled with Bean’s Concerto
performance along with the other chamber works. If you want
the Sammons it’s available from Pearl, coupled with the Concerto.
It’s also available on Naxos in a dog’s dinner of a recital,
coupled with the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante and some
encore pieces. Wonderful playing, terrible programming.
For a bargain-priced
recital however this Naxos entrant has real merit. Strikingly
alert and forward-moving the Lamsma-Miura duo brings the sonata
alive in a way bigger figures often signally fail to achieve.
Jonathan Woolf
see also Review
by Michael Cookson
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