David Nadien (violin)
Live in Recital
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Violin Sonata in B flat, K454 (1784)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Violin Sonata No.6 in A, Op.30 No.1 (1801-02)
César Franck (1822-1890)
Violin Sonata in A (1888)
David Nadien (violin), Jacques Abram (piano)
rec. 14 January 1972, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA
Biddulph 85068-2 [62]

This is the second volume that Biddulph has devoted to the American violinist David Nadien. The earlier one contained recordings Nadien made in 1958 with pianist David Hancock. Here one finds him in a recital containing three sonatas given with Jacques Abram in concert at the University of South Florida in 1972. No applause is retained. One consistent demerit is one can hear the action of Abram’s piano. I suspect that this was a result of microphone placement. One gets to grips with it aurally after a while but it’s never really absent. 

The Mozart sonata reprises Nadien’s many attractive and admirable facets – his lyrical, singing tone, his impulse vibrato employed with ravishing discernment, the subtlety of his slides and finger position changes. He shows a touching intimacy in the slow movement as well as a vivacious athleticism in the finale. Beethoven’s Sonata No.6 reinforces the qualities of the Mozart as well as the well-judged balance between the two instruments. I should add that after my previous review Mordecai Shehori, owner of the Cembal d’amour label, who has valuably released many Nadien discs, wrote in to tick me off for my comments about balance. If Nadien wanted a ‘Heifetz’ balance in the studio, he isn’t going to get one in concert – and quite rightly too. The finale’s variations are particularly felicitous here, well characterised and vivacious.

There are few interpretative differences between this Franck Sonata and the 1958 LP on that earlier Biddulph disc. Perhaps the opening is now a little more elastic in Florida but otherwise Nadien’s interpretation is consistently attractive, through reflecting a little of Heifetz’s aura if not his legerdemain. I especially liked the tonal tact of the second movement – Nadien is not too fervid and smeary, which is what it can all too often become. His warmly lyrical but incisive phrasing is admirable and the finale draws from him playing of appropriate succulence and passion.

Abram plays well, a few unremarkable slips aside – this is a live recital after all, and musicians are not machines – and he may be remembered most not for his recordings for Orpheus or Musical Heritage but for his premiere recording of Britten’s Piano Concerto with Herbert Menges for HMV. He can also be heard in its first American broadcast, directed by Stokowski though I don’t know whether his American premiere of Arthur Benjamin’s Concerto has survived. 

This is another good retrieval from Biddulph which has been soundly annotated and transferred. It’s primarily of interest to Nadien admirers, of whom there should be more.

Jonathan Woolf

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