Belatedly for the centenary in 1992 of his birth, but no less welcome, are these recordings of Szigeti in his mid fifties in New York. They are, in fact, all the more welcome because unfortunate impressions have been created by ill-advised issues of recordings made in his later years when his technique became distinctly fallible. However, anyone thinking of him as thin-toned (for he did not believe, as many modern players do, in maximum tonal voluptuousness at all times and in all styles) or as faulty in his intonation should take a deep breath and listen to the present disc. The superb assurance, intense warm tone and rock-solid intonation of the G minor Sonata will shake them. He takes the initial Allegro freely but is spikily rhythmic in the Fugue (whose part-writing is made crystal clear), is very slow in the Siciliano but shows tremendous vigour in the final Presto. He was presumably playing on an instrument with a flattened bridge, since unless part-writing demands, its many triple-stops are played sec, and even quadruples are sometimes minimally split. Unfortunately an incompetent sound engineer has not turned up his microphone until halfway through the second bar, and various crackles are heard, but overall this is an immensely impressive experience.
Regrettably, the E major Partita was apparently recorded in a small cardboard box. The dead acoustic seems to have unnerved Szigeti to the extent of his being less than ideally controlled in the Prelude's semiquavers and constantly touching adjacent strings, but his intonation and variety of bowing are unaffected. The Loure barely survives being played Larghetto, but to make amends the Bourree and Gigue are sprightly. What sounds like a low-flying aircraft overhead intrudes in the Gigue, and there are ill-defined audience noises. The A minor Sonata fares rather better, though the acoustic gives a hard, brittle edge to Szigeti's tone in the Fugue, in which he nevertheless shows his command of shaping an abnormally long structure. He allows the Andante to become increasingly slow, but it contains sensitive tonal nuances (and some obtrusive recording crackles). The mike is so close in the Allegro finale that we hear too many extra-musical bow noises.
Despite these drawbacks, Szigeti's artistic stature becomes unmistakably clear, and the short burst of applause at the end strikes one as meagre. Rather tiresomely, tracks are cued only for the works themselves, not individual movements.'