Harold Bauer, ex-fiddle player, piano convert, and the most
prestigious English pianist to emigrate to America, made a series
of 78rpm recordings sufficient to fill 3 CDs – a reasonable
return, though hardly an outstanding number of discs, given
his distinction. He also made numerous piano rolls and he cannily
recorded onto roll some of the things he recorded onto disc,
not least his own baroque pieces. A number of his rolls have
been released over the years, most recently in Nimbus’s Grand
Piano series, and Dal Segno has been busy too. These reproducing
recordings were taped in 1992 and constitute part of the company’s
continuing Great Pianists series; this, in fact, is volume 13.
As ever it’s instructive to line up a disc recording against
a roll reproduction and note the differences. The roll of Beethoven’s
Gavotte in F was made around 1921. Bauer went into the Victor
studios to set down an electric disc of it in 1926. Whereas
the roll is tonally undifferentiated and metrical, the disc
is colouristic and vital. A listen to the trills will demonstrate
what we are lacking in a roll: they’re dead, whereas in the
disc they’re vital and singing. Similarly whilst I wager you’ll
enjoy Bauer’s baroque pieces in this roll – the Motley and
Flourish, and Barberini’s Minuet, you will enjoy
them far more if you chance to listen to the June 1924 acoustic
disc recordings he left behind; you’ll find the magic here that
the rolls lack.
The only Bach recording Bauer made was of his own – not Myra
Hess’s – arrangement of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring and
this does mean that the roll of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue,
made around 1929, is of value and importance; so too Liszt’s
Paganini Etude. Bauer wasn’t much known as a Liszt player and
flashy repertoire didn’t feature much in his programmes. In
fact apart from Un sospiro and Waldesrauschen
he left no Liszt recordings. There isn’t much Chopin either;
he was more a Schumann man it would seem, though it does seem
a low haul for a poetic musician such as Bauer. He did record
the A flat major Impromptu, the Fantasie-Impromptu in C sharp
minor and the Berceuse in D flat but nothing else. Fortunately
the rolls augment this, however fallibly, with a Polonaise,
an Etude and the complete B minor Sonata. This is the single
most important aspect of this disc, given that he didn’t have
many opportunities to record big works, and had none to record
concertos. His large-scale studio undertakings were the Moonlight
sonata for Victor in 1927, Schumann’s Fantasiestücke
for HMV in 1935, and his famous Brahms’s Third Sonata set for
Schirmer in 1939. With notable reservations one can cite this
Chopin roll too.
This disc augments Bauer’s discography therefore, albeit tentatively.
His disc recordings have been issued in one three CD set on
APR7302 and they are highly recommended by me – certainly for
the Brahms, the Schumann and Grieg, and the numerous smaller
pieces, all played with poetry and lovely tone.
Jonathan Woolf
Harold Bauer (piano) reproduced via piano rolls
