This collation celebrating the art of Chilean virtuoso Claudio Arrau (1903-1991) embraces inscriptions he made 1928 (Islamey) through 1980 (Schubert Allegretto), revealing both his fierce prowess and his large, Romantic temperament. Born into a Spanish culture, Arrau sliced unto it a definite Germanic sympathy, via his studies with his only true pedagogue, Martin Krause. In the last ten years or so of his recording career, Arrau’s tempos slowed down significantly, although his technique remained basically intact. Always Arrau’s playing reveals control, passion, intellectual probity, and cosmopolitanism. He specialized in a broad range of music, mostly in the German school, with periodic excursions into Spanish repertory and, of course, Chopin. Few pianists could power their way through Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes or Weber’s Konzertstueck like Arrau.
The program opens with Arrau’s 1965 Moonlight Sonata, a strong rendition – poised, sensual, excellently balanced in all parts. The Mozart Rondo in A Minor (1974) is the only solo work Rubinstein favored, although Arrau would investigate sonatas and fantasias as well. As played by Arrau, the slow, tragic figures adumbrate much of Chopin; they certainly point the way to Hummel. Rounded sound, broad periods, and delicate ornaments prove a showcase for the Steinway instrument here. It was Artur Schnabel who first brought forth the melancholy beauty of Schubert’s C Minor Allegretto; Arrau plays it as a somber etude, a study in dynamic touches. His 1970 reading of the Liszt Sonata is little short of Herculean, a stylish ride through Liszt’s alternately Stygian and Empyrean ecstasies. Clear, colossal delineations of the grund-gestalt (basic thematic shape) provide motivic glue, while a huge arch rings out the heroic theme in splendid sound (although the annoying Steinway “ping” is evident). The earliest inscription – the glittering, even frenzied 1928 Islamey from hiss-filled German Polydor, had appeared on a fine transfer of all of Arrau’s prewar recordings by Ward Marston on his own label (52023-2).
Arrau several times, for EMI and for American Decca, began an integral Chopin project, but he never inscribed the complete works. His 1953 Chopin Impromptus enjoy an athletic, sensuous line, a definite salon sensibility. Exquisite, fluid trills in the A-flat impromptu. The wistful set of variants with declamations, the F-sharp Major, Op. 36, proceeds delicately, then in the style of a resolute ballade. Arrau plays the G-flat , Op. 51 as a companion of the Trois Nouvelles Etudes, smoothly serpentine, harmonically audacious. Poetic thunder for the Fantasie-Impromptu, colors and eroticism in abundance.
The 1968 Fantasy-Jest from Vienna of Schumann balances extroversion with self-conscious wistfulness, the sense of fanciful play evident in each poised bar. Eusebius proves just as assertive as Florestan, the Steinway sonics much better contained in the higher registers. In the course of Schumann’s exalted and amorous figures, Arrau manages to hang some translucent fire. Tape hiss intrudes into the 1952 Eroica Variations, which prove hard and percussive, boxy on the engineering side, but still stylistic Beethoven. Arrau strives for an orchestral resonance, and he gets it. A master of refined, solid textures, Arrau continues to compel our attention. This set, while reviewing much familiar territory for Arrau admirers, must occupy pride of place in any basic consideration of Arrau’s legacy.
— Gary Lemco
