I've now heard two records in this series and enjoyed neither of them as much as I'd hoped. The production of this one is slack: the tape editing is noticeable here and there, there's a duff note from Shumsky in the finale of the A major Sonata (bar 270) which really ought to have been covered, and I can't believe he was as peripatetic in the studio as these shifting images make him appear. I'm disappointed too to find the piano sound so shallow and wooden. Intermittently the performances are good, with real vitality in the first movement of the A major and, in general, rather better articulation than I found in Volume 5 (ALH964, 5/86). Yet the playing still lacks finish. The virtuoso demands of the finale of this glorious sonata are not met by Balsam with the aplomb one used to associate with him. He doesn't seem to have time to shape or colour the torrent of notes or to do much with his left hand; and the inelegant bumps at the end of some phrases are most unwelcome. The old mono version of K526 by Grumiaux and Haskil (Philips, now transferred to CD only—416 478-2PH, 8/86) may be unsurpassable, indeed incomparable, but it does show how much is missing here. Balsam has been a fine classical player in his day and I wish I didn't find myself so critical about him now. The modest Sonata in F 'for piano with a violin', designed for consenting amateurs in private rather than the concert room, is quite sympathetically treated, by Shumsky especially, but of course it gives the violinist little chance to shine.'