Kim Walker is a superb modern bassoonist whose gifts could be even better served by more recent repertory. Boismortier's rococo sonatas were intended equally for cello, bass viol or bassoon and don't specially exploit the instrument, though Walker does much to make them seem idiomatic. She gives them a warm and enthusiastic reading, even if her use of vibrato and rallentandos belong to a later era. She executes the engraved ornaments very nicely but is less confident when adding them herself (as at the end of the first movement of the C minor Sonata from Op. 50). However, her tone is so sweet and refined, and her technique so accomplished, that they dispel many of the scruples even of one grown accustomed to hearing this sort of music on a period instrument.
Boismortier's sonatas are nothing if not charming, with tuneful slow movements and jolly quick ones; Walker is beguilingly expressive in the former, while the latter demonstrate her formidable command of bassoon articulation. If there is any cause for disappointment it is in a lack of awareness of the diverse rhythmic character of the dances (particularly the gavottas and the sarabande here)—mere trifles in themselves, one may say, but still elegant reflections of physical movement.
The choice of double-bass rather than cello, or even viol, as accompanying instrument must have been a personal one for the instrument was not commonly used in chamber sonatas. Though Clena Stein is a fine player, she is distinctly at a disadvantage. Her accompaniments are most often an octave below the written bass line, creating a soft-edged sound that contrasts sharply with the neatly articulated sounds of the bassoon; in the two Largos of the G major Sonata from Op. 50 she creates a gently swaying pendulum bass in the first and a groaning drone in the second, a rather slow musette. When playing at pitch Stein can be both a sympathetic accompanist, as in the parallel writing between the parts in the second Largo of the G major Sonata, and a nimble one, to judge by the Allegro of the E minor from Op. 26 (though in Boismortier's day double-bass continuo players would usually have opted out of such passage-work in orchestral and opera repertory). The sleeve-note, signed by Kim Walker, is derived virtually word for word from the Boismortier entry in Grove.R1 '8805054'