Frank Miller’s career of over fifty years, much of it of great eminence, made him one of America’s most enduring artists. Son of Russian immigrant parents, he took up the cello at an early age and in his teens was accepted by the Curtis Institute where he benefitted (like his cousin Leonard Rose) from the teaching of Felix Salmond, one of the greatest American cellists and pedagogues of the period. His first professional appointment came when he was eighteen, precipitating a career mainly spent leading cello sections of important American orchestras. Miller gained the approval of Casals, leading his Festival Orchestra between 1957 and 1959; but his most significant position was a twenty-six-year tenure as principal cellist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His legacy includes a number of edited orchestral cello parts from major works, containing bowings and fingerings that give fascinating performance-practice insights. Miller also conducted, and was the musical director of the Evanston Symphony Orchestra for more than twenty years.

Miller’s relatively rare solo recordings reveal a powerful tone and dominant musical personality. Arguably there is a slight lack of refinement to his sound, perhaps caused by his predominantly orchestral career. Thus, the 1948 Strauss performance here (in intermittently very poor recorded sound) has some rather overblown accentuation, although Miller’s approach is generally tight, spare and full of character, testifying to his effectiveness in such orchestral solos. The Brahms Double Concerto with Mischakoff under Toscanini (1948) – an intense, powerful reading – is spoilt by some harsh A-string sounds; both soloists are still using a fair amount of pronounced portamento, but Miller’s tone, although employing an almost continuous vibrato, is nonetheless relatively pure.

The two chamber music recordings here show Miller’s great prowess in this genre. The Schumann Piano Quartet (1953) is powerfully drawn, showing the credentials of the New York Quartet, although some of the rhythmic reading seems perhaps overly literalistic. The fi nale has commendable fugal rigour whilst the fi rst movement counterbalances stylistic economy of gesture with a haunting intensity. The Brahms Clarinet Trio (1950) – important as a work which demonstrates the increasing emancipation of the cello as a solo instrument – is performed with warmth, although there are moments of over-heavy articulation. A 1941 recording of Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 shows Miller at his most lyrical and sensitive. All these recordings reveal him as an artist of the fi rst rank, and explain his reputation as one of America’s most signifi cant cellists.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Milsom (A–Z of String Players, Naxos 8.558081-84)