Dame Myra Hess was notoriously microphone shy and her few recordings—whether 'unofficial' or official—are sought as eagerly as gold-dust. So all praise to Biddulph for giving us the complete solo American Columbia recordings dating from 1928-31, finely transferred by David Lennick and confirming in every way one of music's greatest legends.
Very suitably this recital commences with Dame Myra's calling-card, her arrangement of Bach's ''Jesu, joy of man's desiring'' (from Cantata No. 147) before continuing with a mix of classics and surprises. In un-hyphenated Bach her sense of polyphony is as natural as it is flawless, while her Scarlatti is bathed in a warm, romantic light several removes from, say, Horowitz's glacial glint and sparkle. Her Schubert sonata unfolds with cultured ease, a leisurely alternative to today's tauter, more severe taste. And, again, her unusually expansive way with Schumann's ''Vogel als Prophet'' (from Waldszenen) gives added wistfulness to his tremulous song and a special glow to the assuaging reply.
Dame Myra's Brahms is, perhaps, less fleet or airborne than in the finest performances of Sir Clifford Curzon, Rubinstein or, more recently, Murray Perahia, her Debussy hardly erases memories of Gieseking and her ''Ritual Fire Dance'' from Falla's El amor brujo, while admirably energetic, is much less potent or incandescent than from Rubinstein (RCA, 9/93). Yet even in such relatively foreign territory her playing is never less than deeply considered or intuitively musical, and in Griffes's ''The white peacock'' (from the Four Roman Sketches—a tribute to her adoring American public) and, most of all, in Palmgren's Cradle Song, delicacy and ardour are hers alone to command.
Virgil Thomson's poisonous jibe (''she is not memorable like a love affaire, she is useful like a well-tailored suit'') seems mercifully remote, and just in case you should think of Dame Myra Hess as either magisterial or puritanical try her in Rudolf Ganz's arrangement of Schubert's Rosamunde; an enchanting performance touched by grace and mischief in equal proportions.'