It’s been an enjoyable
experience listening to Roberto Díaz
and Robert Koenig’s performances of
William Primrose’s transcriptions. Even
more salutary has been the experience
of pitting Díaz against Primrose
himself, in those pieces that the Scotsman
recorded. Primrose enjoyed transcribing
songful melody spicing them with salty,
rhythmic Latin Americana and these two
facets of his art, though he was very
modest about them, share disc space
with Efrem Zimbalist’s own Sarasateana.
This was something Primrose famously
recorded to his own dissatisfaction,
though the disc was nevertheless issued
and hearing it many years later the
violist found he very much liked it
after all.
Naxos promotes the
fact that Díaz plays Primrose’s
own Brothers Amati viola, newly restored,
and this supposedly lends some piquancy
to the proceedings, as does the fact
that Díaz’s father was a Primrose
pupil. There’s no reason however why
Díaz should seek to emulate the
older player and indeed he proves an
individualist resistant to the more
visceral and overtly tangy properties
evinced by Primrose. So Díaz
is consistently slower and more languorous,
less given to rubati and timbral contrasts
– more patrician, in a word. Primrose’s
1947 recordings, with the excellent
David Stimer, of a number of these pieces
can be found on Biddulph 80147-2; boxily
recorded no doubt but full of brilliant
colour and life.
The Aguirre/Heifetz,
to take one example, sees a gruff Primrose
exploring brilliant contrastive devices,
whereas Díaz prefers a more sanguine
and horizontal elegance of expression.
The Valle/Heifetz doesn’t really come
across as "allegro comodo"
in Díaz’s hands and sounds rather
literal after the Scotsman. There are
only three movements here from Primrose’s
arrangement of Beethoven’s Op.8 Serenade
– we could have nicely done with them
all. To Primrose’s dark grained incision,
his faster tempi and tighter vibrato
we can contrast Díaz’s more gentlemanly
reserve. Something Primrose exploited
to the full in the Zimbalist was fiery
accenting. What sets his playing here
apart is the fiery drive of the Polo,
the timbral contrasts he generates throughout
and the tension of the Zapateado,
and so on.
To be sure Díaz
spreads out languorously in the Borodin
and proves an expressive exponent of
the Schubert Litany. His vibrato usage
is cannily and seductively varied in
the Wagner. But one misses Primrose’s
jutting panache in the Paganini and
the brilliance of his incision in the
more rollicking pieces. Which is no
more than saying that Díaz exercises
his right to see things differently,
I suppose.
One can hear subtle
differences in the hall acoustic from
session to session even though the recordings
took place within the space of a few
days, but only through listening via
headphones. Otherwise there’s a fine
balance between instruments. I’ve not
mentioned Koenig much; he follows his
partner with sensitivity and reflects
the broadly generous music-making very
adeptly. Díaz meanwhile never
forces through the tone, and never seeks
to emulate the tougher, more brittle
and incisive sound cultivated on the
same instrument by the older player.
It’s an adroit tribute from one violist
to another but interested parties should
certainly seek out Primrose’s own recordings;
they bring tremendous reserves of energy
and life and no little athletic poetry.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review
by Chris Fifield
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Roberto
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