Claudio Arrau was
captured in performance at the Theresa
L Kaufman Concert Hall in New York in
December 1975. The programme was suitably
heavyweight; patrician, noble, spiritual
– the three last Beethoven Piano Sonatas.
And the event was captured on what must
have been an audience member’s portable
cassette recorder, maybe with a microphone
strapped to a jacket (you can hear the
tell-tale microphone rustle at numerous
points). The resultant disc gives us
performances both grave and romantic
but also frustrating. Coughs, splutters,
microphone-shake at applause, dropped
coins and a veiled recessive sound perspectives
are the inherent problems of the disc,
unavoidably so given the ad hoc nature
of the taping. Are the results worth
it and does this disc shed light on
Arrau’s perceived greater level of volatility
in concert?
Certainly this E major
is more obviously romanticised than
the Philips recording made in the mid-1960s
– gestures are that much more yielding
and pliant. Arrau’s richly expressive
tonality is here compromised somewhat
though it is by the amateur nature of
the recording; one feels no sophistry
in his playing of the sonata and instead
the grave simplicity of the unarguably
right. It is only just about bearable
when, during the last movement (Andante
molto cantabile ed espressivo), the
barking cough of a neighbour is only
too well picked up. Op.110’s opening
movement is a case of contrasts, which
in Arrau’s hands becomes polarised,
sharply delineated. The Fuga is full
of razor-sharp entry point and digital
accuracy – whilst strictly observing
the ma non troppo direction.
In Op.111 I felt that Arrau tended to
smooth over certain incidents in the
Arietta that ultimately worked against
full architectural cohesion. Some of
the playing is quite soft-edged and
the contrasts that he evoked in the
earlier opus are here too greatly magnified,
not always to the longer and larger-scaled
advantage of the work.
Nevertheless, as an
(albeit hit and miss) adjunct to Arrau’s
commercial discography this Christmas
recital reveals once again Arrau’s intense
spiritual identification with late Beethoven.
Such distensions as he habitually displayed
at this time in his life are not overly
problematic here, to the extent that
they can be in, say, his Brahms.
Jonathan Woolf
Claudio Arrau (piano) 
