JAVS Fall 1998

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bel canto. RCA should reissue that perfor mance without delay. Primrose's last records documented his approach to the first five of Bach's six cello suites-he did not believe the Sixth Suite was suitable for playing on the viola. The record ing process was fraught with difficulties due to the great violist's deafness, but with the de voted help of Dr. David Dalton, who acted as producer, it was possible to set down at least a template of what might have been had Prim rose tackled such a project ten or twenty years earlier. The results-on a two-CD set (Biddulph LAB 13112) with selected performances from 78rpm discs including all of Primrose's fine obbligati to Marian Anderson's rich singing do not always make comfortable listening, but viola enthusiasts and students will find the performances absorbing for their rhyth mic acuity, interpretative penetration, and expressive power.

CD: the one with Ernst Bour on Vogue is well played but poorly recorded and I prefer that with Klemperer on Music and Arts (CD 752). Most of Primrose's late work was done for RCA Victor. Sadly, the best chamber group in which he played, the Festival Quar tet, is not represented on CD. Among its finest records were the Beethoven and Schu mann E-flat quartets, the Brahms C-minor (all three Brahms piano quartets were done) and the Faure G-minor. RCA has re released a heartless Mozart Concertante with Heifetz; but it is better to go for Arthur Benjamin's Romantic Fantasy, in which their collaboration really strikes sparks in the Heifetz Edition. All the chamber music with Heifetz and Piatigorsky is available, which will please those that like surface gloss, oily tone, and brutally fast tempi. The late Prim rose is well represented by some 1959 Mozart Quintets with the Griller Quartet on Van guard (08 802471 and 08 802571), though I prefer to think of Primrose playing in the slow movement of Beethoven's Piano Quartet with the Festival Quartet, which was the essence of

William Primrose belonged to no school of playing, although he displayed the best aspects of the Sevcik school and the Franco-Belgian tradition in the way he handled the viola. As usc UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SCHOOL OF MUSIC UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

VIOLA FACULTY Pamela Goldsmith Donald Mcinnes

For further information, contact: USC School ofMusic Los Angeles, Ca 90089-0851 (800)872-2213 e-mail: uscmusic@usc.edu

Degrees offered: BM, MM, DMA Advanced Studies Certificate

www.usc.edu