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Claudio Arrau's Confrontational Mozart · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
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  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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  You can subscribe to The Piano Maven podcast
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  by going to the link in our episode description
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  to my Substack page, and paid subscribers get...
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  goodies such as free downloads at the beginning
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  of each month. And from time to time, we will
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  have Zoom meetings where we can all meet and
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  talk about our piano obsessions. So please consider
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  subscribing to The Piano Maven to keep this podcast
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  alive and afloat and in production. I haven't
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  yet done an episode about the great Chilean -born
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  pianist Claudio Arau, who lived from 1903 until
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  1991. I certainly have written about Arau frequently,
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  not only reviewing his recordings, of course,
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  but I also wrote a... portrait of Arau for gramophone
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  many years ago. And I've written the booklet
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  notes for the Marston Labels edition of Arau's
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  pre -war 78s and for Sony BMG's edition of Claudio
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  Arau's complete RCA Victor and Columbia Masterworks
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  recordings. I wrote those notes too. Although
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  Claudio Arau was known for amassing a very large
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  and Catholic repertoire, as he got older, he
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  slowly but surely narrowed his scope and sharpened
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  his focus. So by the time he turned 80 in 1983,
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  Arau mainly was concentrating in concert. on
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  Beethoven, with a choice selection of works of
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  Liszt and Chopin and Brahms and Debussy. Yet
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  one composer whom Arau had seemed to resist for
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  years was Mozart. It wasn't that he could not
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  play Mozart. We have plenty of evidence of his
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  Mozartian prowess, most memorably from that large
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  -scaled and very operatically oriented 1956 Salzburg
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  Mozart recital that was issued on the Orfeo label.
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  The late Frida Rothi was Arau's manager and after
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  Arau died I got to meet her and we would meet
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  for lunch from time to time. I once asked her
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  why Arau seemed to resist Mozart and she said
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  that oh it's because Arau found that it was challenging
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  to memorize Mozart more than other composers,
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  and he wouldn't play anything in public that
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  he couldn't really memorize. Now, Arau did make
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  one studio Mozart disc for Phillips in 1973,
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  I think, consisting of the C minor fantasy. Kerschel
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  475 and the Sonata in C minor, Kerschel 457,
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  that are usually played together. The disc also
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  contained the Rondo in A minor and the D minor
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  Fantasy. But it wasn't until maybe a decade later
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  that Arrau began revisiting Mozart again on disc.
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  First... with a release that came out on LP that
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  included these sonatas in B -flat, Kershaw 570,
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  and the D major sonata, Kershaw 576, and the
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  adagio in B minor. And in the adagio, he played
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  this piece in a slow and massive and serious
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  manner with all repeats, stretching the music
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  out to almost 16 minutes. And soon after, Arau
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  was involved recording the rest of the Mozart
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  sonatas. He wasn't playing Mozart in public,
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  but he was recording Mozart. These late Mozart
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  recordings generally got mixed reviews and some
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  outright negative reviews. I found myself oddly
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  drawn into these interpretations. And when Arouse
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  Phillips' Mozart Cycle eventually appeared in
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  a box set on CD, I remember listening to the
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  performances again, and then I wrote a review
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  of them for Classicstoday .com, which pretty
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  much sums up my feelings about these recordings.
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  And I'm going to reiterate what I said in that
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  review, if that's okay with you, because my opinions
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  really haven't changed over the years. Basically,
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  if you want... Mozart's piano sonatas played
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  with the customary limpid grace, surface charm,
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  consistently steady rhythms, elegant finger work,
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  and scintillation that you get from pianists
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  so diverse as Mitsuko Ushida, Lily Krauss, Andras
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  Schiff. Robert Levin, Maria João Pires, and Roberto
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  Procedo, just to name so many who've recorded
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  Mozart over the years, and whose cycles are definitely
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  reference -worthy, you probably won't like. Claudio
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  Arrau's Mozart. Most of these recordings were
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  made when Arrau was in his 80s, and he takes
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  each and every phrase super seriously, and he
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  reads between the lines by way of emphatic accents
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  and all kinds of rhetorical asides. Now, do these
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  gestures stem from eroding agility on Arrau's
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  part, or just dogged intention? To be honest,
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  I'm not always so sure. But in any event, this
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  is most decidedly Mozart playing of a confrontational
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  kind, where an operatic sensibility looms over
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  every inflection and every gesture, with each
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  dissonance and passing tone kind of magnified.
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  In other words, this is not easy listening. And
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  furthermore, the sonic capabilities of the instruments
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  of Mozart's time pale next to the full -throated
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  and burnished sonority and huge dynamic range
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  that the aged Claudio Arau could still coax out
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  of a Steinway modern concert grand. A row being
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  a row, of course, you have to expect that all
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  of the ornaments will be played on the beat and
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  that he will observe each and every repeat. As
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  I often have written about a row in other contexts,
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  you really cannot listen to this pianist with
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  a casual ear. You have to work with him side
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  by side. whether plumbing the B minor adagio
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  for its neo -Brahmsian allusions and implications,
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  which I think are there in the score, or finding
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  plausible tragic undertones that no one else
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  bothers with in the Kershaw 330, 279, 333, and
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  576 first movements. Arau always loved to talk
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  about this or that composer's proximity to death,
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  and he probably justified his approach to these
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  particular sonata movements by citing Mozart's
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  proximity to death. Arau's technique is admittedly
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  suave. in the aforementioned C minor fantasy
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  sonata from 1973, plus the A minor rondo and
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  D minor fantasy from those sessions. But he's
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  no less serious. He's really channeling Mozart
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  through Beethoven in those recordings. But I
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  think it works on its own terms. In the 1980s
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  recordings, you can hear Arau's fingernails appear
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  to be clicking on the keys, but the sound quality
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  throughout these Mozart recordings is consistently
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  plush and warm and ripely detailed. I originally
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  likened much of Arau's late period Mozart to
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  both the flaws and the insights of Maria Callas's
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  best late period recordings. And I think there's
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  some truth to that analogy still. So I suggest
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  that one savors Claudio Arau in Mozart, undeniably
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  potent vintage spirits again like i said before
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  this ain't easy listening but those who persist
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  will probably be rewarded I still find this to
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  be a fascinating Mozart cycle with Claudio Arrau.
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  It's not one that I would recommend as your first
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  choice. For my first choice, I would choose Roberto
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  Proceda on Decca, and for a period instrument
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  cycle, I'd choose Robert Levins on ECM. And for
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  a safe regulation model, go for Clara Wurz and
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  her Mozart cycle issued by Brilliant Classics.
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  But there is a lot of potency and food for thought
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  in Claudio Arrau's ever so fascinating Mozart
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  cycle for Phillips, which is, of course, on Decca.
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  So think about it and try it out. See what you
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  think. And I'd be very curious to see how you
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  respond to Arrau's Mozart. This is Jed Disler,
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  and you've been listening to The Piano Maven,
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  your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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  And I look forward to you and I being together
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  for the next episode.