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The raison d’être for the disc is to select twelve pianists from amongst the very many who recorded Bach Transcriptions on the piano in the 78 era. We thus range in terms of recording date from a British pianist much esteemed by collectors of 78s, Winifred Christie, and her Moór Duplex-Coupler piano circa 1925 to the young Byron Janis in 1947. Additionally twelve different transcribers are included (sometimes the performer – such as Rachmaninov, Cortot and Harriet Cohen - is also transcriber). It will be noted that some of these recordings are making their first appearance on CD as well. All this has been so attractively done that it seems churlish to wonder whether there is a ready audience for so disparate a collection. Still, that thought aside – and the thought that a number of these transcription recordings were themselves "fill-ups" for longer works – there is still a great deal to enjoy here; mainly this will centre around those pianists generally now unfamiliar.

I don’t know how Winifred Christie (1882-1965) would have reacted to being called Ms Winifred Christie by sleeve note writers Marina and Victor Ledin – probably with bafflement. I’d hope with suave belligerence. She championed the Bechstein Duplex-Coupler Piano (a two-manual affair an octave apart. The "coupler" device overcame spread chords), which was invented by composer Emanuel Moór, because she married him in 1923 – a fact the notes don’t tell us. She was also a composer and recorded selectively for Aeolian Vocalion and Winner, premiered Edgar Bainton’s Concerto-Fantasia and was one of Britain’s leading pianists. I hope this splendid recording of the Moór adapted Bach-Tausig Toccata and Fugue will revive her memory. Bostonian George Copeland (1882-1971) plays a transcription by another elite pianist, Walter Rummel, whose Bach playing I admire enormously. Copland, like Christie, moved in Harold Bauer’s orbit but additionally studied with the legendary Teresa Carreño. He was a Debussy proselytizer, giving many American premieres but became overshadowed by other lesser pianists and never recorded as widely as his talents merited. His Jesus Christus, Gottes Sohn is moving and magnificent. Harriet Cohen was a Matthay student; her early Columbia part complete recording of the Well Tempered Clavier was shared with the older pianist Evlyn Howard Jones, friend of Delius, whose portion was significantly more impressive than hers. She plays her own transcription of the Chorale from Cantata no 22 with straightforward intelligence. I’m afraid I found Alexander Kelberine rather strait-laced; the tragically short-lived Russian (1903-40) studied with two giants, Busoni and Siloti, and also with the peripatetic Leo Sirota. He committed suicide after suffering a long period of acute depression. The Myra Hess transcription is given to Walter Gieseking, inferior to Lipatti’s recording of it, but full of clarity if not exactly dripping with sentiment. Janis’ youthful boldness – he was nineteen – is if anything topped by Rubinstein’s incandescence and leonine drama in the Toccata in C major in the Busoni transcription. All however are smitten by the greatest pianist here, Rachmaninov, who opens proceedings with three movements from the third Violin Partita in his own memorable transcription. Not much time to mention Cortot’s affectingly beautiful Aria – noisy copy though, I’m sure a better one could have been found – and the globe trotting Bartlett and Robertson in the Mary Howe transcription of Sheep May Safely Graze, to use the familiar Anglicism. Olga Samaroff (1882-1948) is not afraid to dig into her Fugue transcription – impressive – and Backhaus is dependable in the Pastorale from the Christmas Oratorio.

I particularly commend this disc for its retrieval function or in Stevie Smith’s words "the lost dawn recover." This is not a back-handed compliment, I hope, but is on the contrary meant to draw attention to those pianists upon whom I have concentrated in this review. Their sensitivity and depth fully deserve to live once again in such glorious company.

Jonathan Woolf

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