This is very agreeable programme planning: not only is all the music more than acceptable as such, but is varied, with two shorter, unaccompanied pieces setting off the major duo-sonatas, allowing each side to make a balanced listening sequence. Not only, though, is the planning very good on this occasion, but so is the recording: tonally rich and warm, well balanced, and proceeding from exceptionally quiet surfaces. And so, very much so, is the playing. Peter Wallfisch and his son, Raphael, make a duo of great skill and great sympathy.
Particularly is this the case in the Delius. In this piece flow is of the essence: the composer offers little variety of texture, and little variety of pulse. But here the pulse is allowed enough fluctuation to result in an easy and natural flow which disguises the original sameness; or perhaps a better way to put it is that with this gentle variety at the margin the pulse now seems ideal for the message of the music. So, indeed, does the texture. No lover of the Delius magic will expect a sonata (or a concerto) of his to behave 'properly': yet at times the continual cantabile may well seem to the not-yet-enthralled listener to be overdone. But during this particular performance Delius seems to be, as he is, masterly: the means suiting the ends ideally.
Equal sympathy both between the two players and between them and the music is in evidence in the Frank Bridge Sonata. This is somewhat less familiar, and rather lengthier than the Delius; the length allowing a much greater variety of both texture and mood than in the other sonata. At times the texture is an exceedingly difficult one for the players; but the duo are entirely masters of the situation, giving total flow to even the most hair-raising passages. They have sympathy, too, with the more reflective passages: these abound, Bridge writing with plentiful variety of texture, pace, and colour, with alternating sections, and cross-references, making the two-movement form seem almost like a single movement of gigantic span. It is a powerful work, not so securely in the repertory as it really should be.
The all-round excellence of this new record makes comparisons with older versions of the sonatas revolve only around repertoire; for in both performance and quality of recording the new issue, I would suggest, is in both cases to be preferred. Julian Lloyd Webber, playing with Clifford Benson, is a special case, for the Delius is only part of a CBS programme of miscellaneous pieces and movements designed to illustrate the characteristics of the cello; the original release (in 1974) was Lloyd Webber's first record. Lloyd Webber, playing with Eric Fenby on Unicorn-Kanchana, is also a special case in view of Fenby's association with Delius. In particular it is interesting that on both records Lloyd Webber departs (effectively) from Delius's text in sustaining the final top D to the end, leaving the original final cello chord. The remainder of the 'with-Fenby' record is of Fenby talking, interestingly, and other artists playing several short pieces, piano and string music of delius and of Lili Boulanger (including her magical Nocturne). The Bridge Sonata occupies one side of the de Saram/Pearl alternative record; the other is given to a performance of the Bridge Violin Sonata which JW admired substantially in 1977.
Generous spacing on the new record allows, of course, the inclusion in addition to the Delius and Bridge of the two unaccompanied cello solos: the Walton somewhat severe, the Bax less so, indeed quite romantically expansive. As I suggested initially, they complete very satisfactorily the programme of this splendid new release.'