Musical greatness shines through, despite abridged recordings
The Strad Issue: May 2025
Description: Musical greatness shines through, despite abridged recordings
Musicians: Albert Sammons (violin) William Murdoch (piano)
Works: Beethoven: Violin Sonatas: op.24 ‘Spring’, op.47 ‘Kreutzer’. Coleridge-Taylor: Violin Sonata. Franck: Violin Sonata. Grieg: Violin Sonata no.3. Ireland: Violin Sonata no.2 (1916–17 abridged acoustic recordings)
Catalogue number: BIDDULPH 85055-2
Even with my standard of maths, readers will work out that with six sonatas on one disc, something has had to give. These are the abridged recordings that Columbia thought adequate at the time of the First World War. Four of the works were allotted two discs each and the Grieg and Franck had just one each, enough for tastes of the first two movements.
In the circumstances, Albert Sammons and his Australian partner William Murdoch did very well. Their playing is excellent, especially considering that in all six pieces they were working with unfamiliar cut versions.
The Coleridge-Taylor and Ireland sonatas were recorded on the days after their respective premieres. The exotic quality of the former is well caught but I feel that Sammons’s tuning, while respectable, would have been even better if he had been given time to get the notes better into his fingers – he was able to record the complete Ireland work in 1930 with the composer at the piano (Dutton).
The ‘Kreutzer’ was remade in complete form by Sammons and Murdoch in 1927, but this is the only chance to hear them in the ‘Spring’. The Grieg was given another abridged recording by Sammons on Vocalion with Frank St Leger but these are his only samples of the Franck and the Coleridge-Taylor.
It is good to hear Sammons’s gut strings. The piano did not record as well as the violin in the acoustic era, but Murdoch keeps his end up, even if the piano sound is sometimes a little tubby. A fascinating glimpse into pioneering times.
TULLY POTTER
Read: ‘Music is part of our existence, even under shell-fire’: String players of the Great War
Hear: Lionel Tertis and Albert Sammons
Read: From the mists of time: forgotten string players of the past
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