Myra Hess - BBC Legends: Myra Hess - Beethoven, Schumann, Bach (2006)

Dame Myra Hess' received an honorary title from the British crown for performing lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery during the height of the Second World War. But never was a Dame more a Dame than Hess: she had all the dignity and nobility traditionally associated with the heroes and heroines of the sceptred realm, and her recordings are among the most revered by any British pianist of her generation. Whether a later generation will be able to appreciate Hess, however, is open to question because as two of the three recordings here demonstrate, Hess conspicuously lacked a first-class technique. Her 1960 performance of Beethoven's Second Concerto with Alexander Gibson conducting the Scottish National Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival is lively in the opening Allegro con brio, lovely in the central Adagio, and delightful in the closing Rondo, but it is rarely secure and even more rarely refined. Similarly, her 1958 performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto with Malcolm Sargent leading the BBC Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall in London is wholly sensitive and thoroughly poetic but hardly a bar goes by that Hess doesn't drop handfuls of notes and her first-movement cadenza may prove unlistenable to those brought up with a later standard of textural fidelity. Only her 1950 performance of Bach's Toccata in G major is sufficiently technically accomplished to allow her more elevated qualities to shine through, but as this performance comes last on the program, it may be too late to convince some listeners. BBC's air check sound is acceptable considering its antique origins, but it may also tax the patience of listeners used to later standards of aural fidelity.