by MYRA HESS (Pianoforte) and JELLY D'ARANYI (Violin) playing. The soloist is often inclined, and very naturally, to forget that he, or she, is for the moment not an individual, but a member of a team. The two distinguished artists who are to give this recital, however, play together with that complete mutual understanding which is born of real sympathy and frequent practice together.
The listener knows by now that Bach's music for even one instrument is very seldom strictly in one part, but that it is built up on melodic threads which run side by side to form a pattern, often intricate in design, until repeated hearings have made it clear. In the sonatas for violin and pianoforte, there are often three parts to be heard simultaneously, each of the pianist's hands having an independent strand of melody, with all three voices having equal shares in the effect of the whole. But the melodies themselves are so fresh and wholesome, and the music as a whole so thoroughly happy and good-humoured, as to call for little more in the way of guidance ; all that need be pointed out in this Sonata is the fine expressiveness of the slow Siciliano with which it begins. A ' Siciliano,' as listeners will remember, is closely akin to a pastoral movement, and as a rule is in a rather flowing measure, at a fairly quick speed. This slow one is in that way a little unusual.