Reissue CD Reviews
LISZT: Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major; SCHUMANN: Piano Concerto in A Mino; WEBER: Konzertstueck in F Minor - Claudio Arrau, piano/ New York Philharmonic/Dimitri Mitropoulos (Liszt)/ New York Philharmonic/Victor de Sabata (Schumann) - Music & Arts
Three towering performances by the great Arrau, who died in 1991
Published on October 24, 2005
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LISZT: Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major; SCHUMANN: Piano
Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54; WEBER: Konzertstueck in F Minor, Op. 79 -
Claudio Arrau, piano/ New York Philharmonic/Dimitri Mitropoulos (Liszt)/
New York Philharmonic/Victor de Sabata (Schumann)/ NBC Symphony/Erich
Kleiber (Weber)
Music & Arts CD-1174, 70:25 (Distrib. Albany) ****:
In what must pass for a tribute to Dionysiac bravura at the keyboard, we have three towering performances by the late Claudio Arrau (1903-1991), the Chilean virtuoso who had imbibed a thoroughly German-Latin sensibility. The immediate rarity is the 5 September 1943 Liszt A Major Concerto with a fervent Dimitri Mitropoulos, a searing collaboration from two adherents of the composer: Arrau via Martin Krause, and Mitropoulos via Busoni. The serpentine melodic variations and the monster shifts in registration and applied dynamics prove mother’s milk to these veterans of digital and temperamental virtuosity.
Arrau’s capacity for ever more applications of brilliant filigree are what made his 18 March 1951 interpretation of the Schumann Concerto special to me both as an LP and in its first CD incarnation through Nuova Era’s Vittorio de Sabata Edition. Arrau had not begun to cultivate the slow tempos and the contrived tonal shadings of his later style. When I mentioned how much I admired this performance in my interview with Arrau in Atlanta in the middle 1980’s, he replied, “It was so long ago; but I do recall that Vittorio and I understood each other completely.” The Erich Kleiber contribution to Weber’s F Minor Konzerstueck, from 20 December 1947 is no less febrile; and, given the work’s considerable impact on the Liszt A Major Concerto, we are safely in the hands of kindred spirits. Arrau recorded the piece around the same time in Chicago, with Defauw. The final pages of all three works bring out Arrau’s after-burners, the Presto giocoso of the Weber’s displaying a facility and dexterity to make pianistic rivals weep. While there are occasional crackles and frequency mutations in the audio quality, the overwhelming fluency of execution warrants the hasty attentions of any lover of keyboard prowess. Conducting aficionados won’t be disappointed either.
--Gary Lemco
Music & Arts CD-1174, 70:25 (Distrib. Albany) ****:
In what must pass for a tribute to Dionysiac bravura at the keyboard, we have three towering performances by the late Claudio Arrau (1903-1991), the Chilean virtuoso who had imbibed a thoroughly German-Latin sensibility. The immediate rarity is the 5 September 1943 Liszt A Major Concerto with a fervent Dimitri Mitropoulos, a searing collaboration from two adherents of the composer: Arrau via Martin Krause, and Mitropoulos via Busoni. The serpentine melodic variations and the monster shifts in registration and applied dynamics prove mother’s milk to these veterans of digital and temperamental virtuosity.
Arrau’s capacity for ever more applications of brilliant filigree are what made his 18 March 1951 interpretation of the Schumann Concerto special to me both as an LP and in its first CD incarnation through Nuova Era’s Vittorio de Sabata Edition. Arrau had not begun to cultivate the slow tempos and the contrived tonal shadings of his later style. When I mentioned how much I admired this performance in my interview with Arrau in Atlanta in the middle 1980’s, he replied, “It was so long ago; but I do recall that Vittorio and I understood each other completely.” The Erich Kleiber contribution to Weber’s F Minor Konzerstueck, from 20 December 1947 is no less febrile; and, given the work’s considerable impact on the Liszt A Major Concerto, we are safely in the hands of kindred spirits. Arrau recorded the piece around the same time in Chicago, with Defauw. The final pages of all three works bring out Arrau’s after-burners, the Presto giocoso of the Weber’s displaying a facility and dexterity to make pianistic rivals weep. While there are occasional crackles and frequency mutations in the audio quality, the overwhelming fluency of execution warrants the hasty attentions of any lover of keyboard prowess. Conducting aficionados won’t be disappointed either.
--Gary Lemco
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