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

by | Oct 24, 2005 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

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

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