Primrose Quartet
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
String Quartet No.2 in G, Op.18 No.2 (1798-1800)
String Quartet No.4 in C minor, Op.18 No.4 (1798-1800)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
String Quartet No.14 in G, K.387 (1782) – 3rd Movement
Duo No.2 in B flat, K.424 (1783) – 1st and 2nd Movements
rec. 1939, broadcasts
Biddulph 85060-2 [65]
You will find the Primrose Quartet’s complete RCA recordings, both published and unpublished, in a 3-CD Biddulph set but the disc under review contains live 1939 broadcasts which predate the ensemble’s studio legacy. It represents an exciting addition to the recordings of the virtuoso group that was established by four members of the NBC Orchestra – Oscar Shumsky, Josef Gingold, William Primrose and Harvey Shapiro. It only lasted a brief time, from 1938 to 1943, and as Wayne Kiley makes clear in his booklet notes, the United States’ entry into the Second World War and the Petrillo recording ban effectively sealed its fate as a recording group. In any case Primrose was still working with his old ensemble, the London String Quartet, and was definitively soon to sever links with both ensembles as his solo career took off and he became the leading viola player of his time.
He had given several complete cycles of the Beethoven Quartets with the London Quartet, the last in 1934 before that group disbanded for the first time, so was well versed in the repertoire. Primrose always said that the group’s cellist, Warwick Evans, taught him pretty much everything about the quartets.
Primrose wanted to record the complete cycle for RCA but nothing was recorded in the studio so these two Op.18 quartets offer strong evidence of the way in which they must have approached the cycle. For the most part – exceptions as noted below – the sound is good and immediate though there is high level hiss. There are occasional studio noises of no significance. If I have a criticism of four such brilliant and alluring soloists, it’s that they do not yet seem to have melded into a genuinely effective quartet. This was the year after the group’s formation so it would have taken far longer to have matured into a quartet that could rival, say, the Budapest who, coincidentally made their own studio recordings of the Op.18/2 (June 1938) and Op.18/4 (January 1941) quartets at around the same time.
There’s a genuinely youthful vitality to the playing and all four voices have an equal aural presence yet there’s something slick about Shumsky’s phrasing in the virtuosic flourishes in the first movement of the Quartet in G. Compare Josef Roisman of the Budapest for a more equable, integrated approach. Both the Primrose and Budapest take an almost identical approach to the slow movement but it’s the Primrose that is the more outsize, the Budapest the more discreet and again in the finale there is some self-regarding playing from the first violin that is apposite for a 21-year-old but not good for ensemble balance.
There is some distortion in the Op.18 No.4 quartet, for a few seconds in the opening of the first movement, but for about one and a half minutes in the Menuetto. Again, one can only marvel at the individual and corporate virtuoso flourish of the four men but nevertheless still prefer the more cohesive balance of the Budapest. The Primrose recorded Mozart’s Quartet in G, K.387 and though it wasn’t issued on 78s it was released many years later and can be found in Biddulph’s set. This live broadcast of the Andante cantabile, the only movement played, prefigures the elegance and purity of tone to be found in the RCA set. Mozart’s Duo No.2 in B flat, K.424 completes the broadcast, though in truncated form as the finale is omitted. This is especially valuable as it allows a compare-and-contrast session with the Heifetz-Primrose recording of 1941. Here Shumsky and Primrose take a more leisurely approach to the first movement and characteristically Heifetz shaves a minute and a half off their time. But more importantly, it allows one to hear Primrose’s tone still in its early richness and breadth. It’s very noticeable that in 1941 his vibrato has speeded up and his tone has become more ‘violinistic’ in emulation of Heifetz.
These are exciting additions to the Primrose Quartet’s legacy though of course there are imperfections, sonically, and also a few limitations interpretatively. Neither will concern admirers of the group, who will have to acquire this disc.
Jonathan Woolf
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