Claudio Arrau and The Romantics

Impassioned, full-bodied playing in the Chopin, though the piano and orchestra sound far apart. — BBC Music Magazine, September 2014, 4 out of 5 stars

Release Date: 23rd Dec 2013
Catalogue No: WHRA6050
Label: West Hill Radio Archive

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Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54

recorded 31st May 1962 in Cologne, Claudio Arrau (piano)
NDR Sinfonieorchester
Rafael Kubelik

Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21

recorded 9th March 1960 in Munich, Claudio Arrau (piano)
Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Massimo Pradella

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Previously unreleased.

Arrau was in his late fifties when he gave these performances; yet he had decades in front of him, too. The music of the Romantics was in his blood, and programs from 1933/34 reproduced in Joseph Horowitz’s book Conversations with Arrau reveal, for example, the Chopin B flat minor Sonata nestling between Beethoven and Ravel; Schumann, Liszt, Beethoven and Schubert all figure largely in those recitals. That the music on this present disc is music close to Arrau’s heart is an understatement. Both these concertos are ideal vehicles for Arrau’s insightful way with the music he chose to deliver to a grateful public. Pianists will appreciate his true technique – technique not in terms of velocity but in terms of tone production, pedalling (he always used little pedal, a condiment rather than a vital ingredient in the recipe) and, most of all, legato. Musicians of all heritages will respond to his deeply-ingrained sense of service to the music he plays.

Reviews

September 2014

Impassioned, full-bodied playing in the Chopin, though the piano and orchestra sound far apart.

Claudio Arrau and The Romantics

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