Following their disc of Bauer's 1924-8 recordings (9/93), and this time having the grace to divulge some facts about the artist, Biddulph now release four of his Victor tracks from 1929 and a number of recordings made for Schirmer ten years later, when Bauer was in his mid-sixties. They have got themselves into a fine old muddle in their presentation: the disc label lists not the programme played but the pieces on the previous issue (!); a Bach prelude and fugue shown as in C sharp minor is in fact that in C sharp major; and the Debussy Reverie listed as track 19 is not on the disc at all. These blunders, however irritating, fortunately do not affect one's appreciation of a pianist (Rachmaninov's exact contemporary) who, though far less well known than most of the eminent figures of the Golden Age of pianism, is certainly to be classed with them.
Of the Victor sides, Schumann's Novelette No. 2 (recorded with a cut in the da capo section) has real bravura and a sensitive central episode, and a Grieg Albumblatt an attractive delicacy; the B minor Capriccio of Brahms (heard through somewhat obtrusive surface noise) is neatly and crisply played; only Debussy's ''Clair de lune'' (Suite bergamasque) eludes him, with chords that are too spread and a lack of the piece's essential tranquillity. The recorded quality of the Schirmer items is very variable. In the most considerable work here, Brahms's F minor Sonata, the piano sound is unpleasantly shallow and harsh; nevertheless, Bauer's reading is immensely impressive. It has eloquence, breadth, grandeur, tremendous vigour in the Scherzo, a powerful sense of continuity in the finale—altogether outstanding. He takes the fourth movement, the Intermezzo, unusually slowly.
The nine other pieces (most of which Bauer had edited for Schirmer publications) are generally more agreeable in piano tone, though some, like a Schumann Romance, are clouded by fairly heavy surface noise. This is true of Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith, which, inexplicably, he plays in E flat, rather romantically and hurriedly. And the hand-crossings of a Scarlatti Sonata in A (Kk113), despite overall freshness, surprisingly find him far from impeccable. Against these, however, must be set a poetic Chopin Berceuse, free of affectations and played with minimal rubato—after all, a cradle does need to be rocked steadily, doesn't it?—a delightfully fluent and nimble Mendelssohn Characterstuck (which deserves to be better known) and a wonderfully clean and poised Bach prelude and fugue that are an object-lesson on how Bach should be played on the piano.'