'And of course there's Ida Haendel ... ' - words invariably uttered with a smile, recalling a distinctive playing style where tonal sweetness is married to considerable technical facility and unostentatious musicianship. Testament has already given us Haendel's magisterial unaccompanied Bach (1/97) and now Decca has come up with this youthful-sounding Slavic menu, recorded at Winterthur an unbelievable 60 years after Haendel made her debut in 1936. True, the tone has thinned somewhat and the reflexes aren't quite as alert as they once were, but the latter part of Szymanowski's 'La fontaine d'Arethuse' has an almost Heifetzian lustre. Elsewhere, expressive slides signal an 'old world' manner of phrasing that is for the most part quite lost to present-day concertgoers (CD buyers are rather more fortunate).

Judged on its own terms, this is a truly remarkable recital, but Decca's laudable decision to supplement the new programme with a carefully restored collection of Haendel's 78rpm recordings for the same company (aired with a touch of added ambience) helps focus at least one significant drawback. Intensity and liveliness are consistent virtues with both players, but where the older recordings enjoy relatively discreet (though not always terribly subtle) piano accompaniments, Vladimir Ashkenazy seems reluctant to play anything softer than mezzo forte. You only have to compare the two recordings of Bartok's Romanian Folkdances to hear how Ashkenazy's pianistic outspokenness tends to take over. Heard next to Jerzy Marchewinska (Polskie Nagrania, 1/80 - nla) or Krystian Zimerman (DG, 6/81 - nla), his Szymanowski is short on fantasy ('La fontaine d'Arethuse' seems rushed) while the Enescu Sonata lacks the improvisational quality achieved by, say, Valentin Gheorghiu (with the wonderfully idiomatic Sherban Lupu - Electrecord EDC 324-5, soon to be made available in the UK).

Haendel's Enescu promotes some creditable gipsy-style inflections. The idiom is certainly mastered but Lupu (who sounds uncannily like Enescu himself) is finer still and in the Bartok Rhapsody Susanne Stanzeleit and Gusztav Fenyo achieve degrees of playfulness and flexibility that the more brittle Haendel- Ashkenazy partnership doesn't quite match.

Viewed as a showcase of what a fine violinist could still achieve in her early seventies, the later Decca recital is - as I've already suggested - something of an inspiration. In a sense, the earlier recordings are easier on the ear (though the Beethoven G major Sonata with Noel Mewton-Wood is rather hectic) with Achron's Hebrew Melody and Albeniz's 'Malaguena' as undoubted highlights. The set would be well worth considering just for the sake of hearing them.

-- Rob Cowan, Gramophone [5/2000]