*BLISS. Concerto for piano and orchestra (19-199). Noel Mewton-Wood (piano). Utrecht Symphony Orchestra (Walter Goehr.

Nixa CLPi 167 (12 in., 36s. 5d).

It may be remembered that the SolomonBoult-Liverpool Philharmonic recording of this concerto (H.M.V. C3348-52) was a highlight of 1943. Both the Editor and myself waxed enthusiastic about it in the July and August numbers of THE GRAMOPHONE in that year. Comparing that recording now with this new one is to find the performance, of course, as impressive as ever but the reproduction faded and constricted, though still acceptable. But the loud and clamorous parts of this opulent concerto lack the thrill, particularly in the brass section, that present-day recording can give and the piano the fine depth of tone Nixa have secured. The old recording is therefore at its best in the lovely slow movement, so superbly played by Solomon. Walter Goehr's treatment of the orchestral part is more fiery and dynamic than Boult's and the orchestral detail nearly always comes out more clearly ; but the intonation of the clarinet in its first solo entry in the first movement and its feeble tone in the syncopated phrase at the end of the slow movement are two weak spots. The recording is sometimes, I think, to be blamed for a very slight fall in pitch, in the woodwind department, at the ends of phrases. In general there is a most excellent balance and the piano is only once masked, at the start of the last movement.

Mewton-Wood gives the performance of his life, a performance full of youthful ardour (and endurance) and seems to rejoice in the formidable difficulties of his part, and so conceals the very fact of their difficulty, and at the same time plays in the slow movement with a remarkable beauty of tone and feeling. He has therefore both the power and the sensitivity needed and is evidently of one mind with the conductor. The orchestra sound, also, as if they were enjoying themselves, and altcgether this is a most exciting and satisfactory affair.

The achievement of the pianist is summed up, in a few pages, in the tremendous bravura of his playing of the cadenza in the first movement—in which Bliss leaves Liszt at the starting-post !—and the simple, restrained playing of the lyrical opening of the slow movement, and it is an achievement that Solomon, that great and generoushearted artist, would be the first to applaud.

A.R.