Too late to bemoan the death of the old 10-inch LP; but today's compulsory 12 inches do sometimes make difficult listening. They do so for bassoon and piano: neither instrument is very warm, and in combination they are distinctly dry. Nevertheless, on the present occasion both performers do what they can; Vignoles declaring himself a lively and sympathetic pianist, and Smith a fluent and often sympathetic bassoonist. Smith's tone is not of the creamiest (rather distinctly not in the relatively hoarse-sounding Hurlstone); and is not shown at its best, perhaps, in a recording (otherwise good) which does seem rather to favour the piano. Only once, however, does he make an ugly sound: the last not of Hurlstone's Ballade movement, where he seems to go, not entirely successfully, for the final printed crescendo. This in fact, I would suggest, should read diminuendo, for the best of musicological reasons: a crescendo in the place concerned is daft. The printer must have put in his hairpin the wrong way round.
Other pieces come off better: Elgar does, Vaughan Williams does (these Folk-song Studies go well on the bassoon), and the Jacob does. (The Jacob raises another musicological point: the sleeve entitles the first number of his suite ''A pieceful piece''; I have always known it as ''A peaceful piece''—did Jacob, not especially given to punning, change his mind later?)
Perhaps, though, it is the older composers who come off best, whose music, undemanding of dynamic range, most suits the pair of intsruments concerned. The Arne and Avision are both arrangements, the one of keyboard music, the other of music for violin and keyboard. And both sound splendid.'