# Arrau - Chopin's Nocturnes



## Ukko

I transferred my LP set of Chopin's Nocturnes (Philips 6747 485) yesterday, and have been listening to the result. Arrau makes these pieces a much darker drink than anyone else I've heard, except for Weissenberg - and Weissenberg's are otherwise much different in their effect on me; that difference means I have two to go to, eh? Anyway, no 'parlor music' in these interpretations.

Here's the amazon link to the current CD release:

http://www.amazon.com/Chopin-Noctur...8&qid=1387070695&sr=1-1&keywords=arrau+chopin

The reviews are worth reading too. They cover the ground better than I can.


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## Bulldog

I love Arrau's Nocturnes. I did sort of a major survey of complete sets a few years ago and was amazed to find that most pianists treat these pieces as night-time bonbons. Arrau recognizes that there's much activity going on in the dark.


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## Blake

Arrau's awesome. The only thing that bothers me is the hissing in the recording... this bothers me particularly with solo music. Having been spoiled with excellent piano recordings with a black background, it's hard for me to allow less... But still, Arrau is one of my favorite pianist. I also really enjoy Simon and Moravec.


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## Blancrocher

Vesuvius said:


> Arrau's awesome. The only thing that bothers me is the hissing in the recording... this bothers me particularly with solo music.


You mean the whistling of the wind as it passes through his nose? :lol:

I'm used to it and admire the performance, but the would-be buyer needs to know.


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## Blake

Blancrocher said:


> You mean the whistling of the wind as it passes through his nose? :lol:
> 
> I'm used to it and admire the performance, but the would-be buyer needs to know.


Haha, I don't mind that. I was talking about the tape-hiss in the background. Like I said, after I started hearing pitch black recordings for solo piano, it's hard to go back to a fuzzy recording.


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## Ukko

Vesuvius said:


> Haha, I don't mind that. I was talking about the tape-hiss in the background. Like I said, after I started hearing pitch black recordings for solo piano, it's hard to go back to a fuzzy recording.


While I was digitizing the music from the LPs, I noticed via the spectrogram window that the high frequencies had been filtered out. I don't have a way to determine how far down the filter was set, a frequency scale isn't provided in GoldWave's spectrogram window. I wouldn't hear tape his anyway, haven't for a decade or two, but should have heard the "nose whistle" if it was there. So... it seems we have options; lose the top 3-4 notes on the piano along with the whistle and hiss (and high harmonics) - or keep all of them. Or, if you can process the music from the current CD release (which was taken from the tapes - hiss included), you can filter out most of the tape hiss and leave the rest.


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## Ukko

^ ^There are several errors in the above post, and it's too late to edit it - so consider this both a correction and a cautionary tale (get the facts straight!). Don't want to mislead the whippersnappers (the geezers are already thoroughly mislead anyway).

1) The spectrogram window in GoldWave does have a frequency scale display option - I found it yesterday.

2) That scale tells me that engineer set the low pass filter for the LPs at ~16kH - which ought to allow the nose whistle; I just didn't hear it.

3) Never mind those 'options', unless you have the means to process the sound yourself.

There. My conscience isn't clear, but it's clearer than it was a minute ago.


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## PetrB

_" 'salon music' -- is of quite modest actual technical demand while designed to sound much more accomplished than needed in its realization. It also followed / follows every light and passing fancy of fickle 'fashionable taste."_

The above is an excerpt, slightly edited, of a statement by a friend and colleague of mine to a similarly aimed comment on Liszt, i.e. that a good deal of Liszt was 'salon music.'

The same can be said of Chopin, that by level of technical demand, and the depth of the music itself, none of it is in any way 'salon music.' To render it as such, or with even a hint of that light and slight manner, is to completely misunderstand Chopin.

Chopin is dark, bold, harmonically wild -- and that far more than just a little adventurous for its time: it is thoroughly 'modern' in that regard. With a real understanding of what Chopin's music was, and still is, it is not at all difficult (with the requisite technical arsenal in the performer's toolbox, natch) to make it sound, even today, dark, wild, 'modern,' and anything but 'salon like.'

Generations have come to love Chopin -- through generations of misinterpretation -- as Chopin the flowery, the sweet, the cloyingly sentimental, the pretty -- bah!

I think Chopin, especially how so many lesser professionals and almost all amateurs render it, is the most widely and frequently misunderstood and wrongly performed of the composers of the greater piano works. Arrau and those few others who render it dark, wild, and anything but sweet and flowery (including the nocturnes) are those who get it right.


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## realdealblues

I guess this thread is going to make me spend some time with Arrau's renditions.

Samson Francois has been my go to for a very long time. I never found his sweet and flowery either.


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## Blake

Yea, I never could see Chopin as a flower-child. His darkness is too obvious. Nearly the musical version of Poe... and they both died in October of 1849. WooooOOoo


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## Crystal

Arrau's Chopin noctures are nice! Rubinstein's are beautiful, too.


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## Triplets

Blake said:


> Arrau's awesome. The only thing that bothers me is the hissing in the recording... this bothers me particularly with solo music. Having been spoiled with excellent piano recordings with a black background, it's hard for me to allow less... But still, Arrau is one of my favorite pianist. I also really enjoy Simon and Moravec.


I listen to the Arrau recording frequently and have not noticed this. What format do you listen to?

Oops- I didn't realize that I am replying to an ancient post


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## Xaltotun

Bulldog said:


> I love Arrau's Nocturnes. I did sort of a major survey of complete sets a few years ago and was amazed to find that most pianists treat these pieces as night-time bonbons. Arrau recognizes that there's much activity going on in the dark.


I'll have to try Arrau here! I remember the last time I listened to Chopin's nocturnes, that's exactly how I felt - "night-time bonbons" (although you put it much better, a wonderful phrase there!)...


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## Holden4th

I've tried to like the Arrau Nocturnes but his approach sounds fussy. The rubato is a case in point as I think it is somewhat overdone. Arrau tries to use rubato to make the music more expressive and this is evident in the first few bars of Op 9/1. Rubinstein and Moravec don't take this approach. They use dynamics instead. What i really like about the Moravec recording is his use of silence.


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## Animal the Drummer

Agree about Arrau's approach. I don't know Moravec's version (yet) but I prefer my Chopin "neat", _à la_ Rubinstein.


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## Holden4th

Animal the Drummer said:


> Agree about Arrau's approach. I don't know Moravec's version (yet) but I prefer my Chopin "neat", _à la_ Rubinstein.


Then try the one CDs worth of recordings on Testament by the great English pianist Solomon. The best Chopin I've ever heard so it's such a pity that's all there is by him.


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## Pugg

Animal the Drummer said:


> Agree about Arrau's approach. I don't know Moravec's version (yet) but I prefer my Chopin "neat", _à la_ Rubinstein.


Give me Barenboim or Ashkenazy any day of the week.


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## Animal the Drummer

We'll have to agree to differ on that, mijnheer. I wish I could play the piano one thousandth as well as either of them, but sometimes when they play solo piano music I hear a little too much of them and not enough of the composer for my liking. These days I prefer them both as conductors.


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