Who would have thought that Anton Rubinstein's Viola Sonata, of all obscure works, would have had a second version following so competitively soon on the heels of another (Le Chant du Monde—reviewed on page 387)? At this rate, we can expect a BBC ''Building a Library'' within a matter of months. For those who are faced with an agonizing choice of which version to go for, I would summarize by saying that this one is somewhat gentler, more introverted, and with a huskier quality to the tone that many will regard as more authentically that of the viola. But the other version is undoubtedly a grand, romantic performance, full of energy and passion.
The other works on the record are charming. Stamitz's Sonata gets off to a splendidly brisk start, with a lively movement that shows how even in the eighteenth century there were composers (and Stamitz as a master of the orchestra was prime among them) who were willing to regard the viola as a virtuoso instrument in its own right and not a poor relation seldom glimpsed outside the safe purlieus of middle-part in-filling in the string section. The slow movement is a pleasantly wistful piece, and there is a good, lively finale. Dittersdorf's Sonata is a rather more sombre affair, though it is evident that he too has troubled to listen to the instrument and to write for its tone-colour as well as its dexterity. The opening movement is a little plain, though effective, and there is an Adagio with an agreeably dark, romantic melancholy to it. This mood is confirmed, after a Minuet, with a theme-and-variations movemenet that is not (which I admit I was expecting) a fairly conventional decorative movement but one based on a theme that begins disconcertingly like the Big Tune in the finale of Brahms's First Symphony, that does genuinely provide a firm conclusion to the whole work. The performances are very sympathetic, the recording careful and lucid.'