# Claudio Arrau (1903–1991)



## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

_My wife and I are leaving tomorrow for a week-long getaway in the Sun, and I wanted to reschedule my quarterly "fifth Tuesday" share to the fourth Tuesday this time around. I hope you won't mind…_

My shares here on the Tuesday Blog and on my Friday series in January have been focused on music for piano (Ashkenazy playing *Mozart *concertos, Alicia de Larrocha playing music by *Albeniz *and Mozart and the next two shares (this week and next) exploring mainly romantic and neo-romantic piano works in solo and concertante settings.

This week's featured artist, Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially *Bach*, *Beethoven*, *Schubert*, *Chopin*, *Schumann*, *Liszt *and *Brahms*. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.

Arrau was an intellectual and a deeply reflective interpreter. He read widely while travelling, and he learned English, Italian, German, and French in addition to his native Spanish. Arrau's attitude toward music was very serious. He preached fidelity to the score, but also the use of imagination. Although he often played with slower and more deliberate tempi from his middle age onward, he had a reputation as a fabulous virtuoso earlier in his career, a reputation supported by recordings he made at this time, such as B*alakirev*'s _Islamey _(opening today's montage) and Liszt's _Paganini études_. However, even late in his career, he often tended to play with less restraint in live concerts than in studio recordings.

The montage proposes Arrau at different phases of his career - playing the difficult Islamey on a shellac recording from 1928, *Debussy *in the 1950's, and Liszt in the 1970's; Arrau was a pupil of Martin Krause, who was a student of Franz Liszt.

Chopin and Mozart complete the montage - Mozart's forward-looking Fantady K. 475 and a pair of Chopin nocturnes. Further, Chopin and Mozart have an intriguing point of intersection in our montage - his variations on "Là ci darem la mano" for piano and orchestra, Op. 2, written in 1827, when he was aged 17. "Là ci darem la mano" is a duet sung by Don Giovanni and Zerlina in Act I of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni.






The Variations were Chopin's first work for piano with orchestra; Chopin often played the variations without accompaniment, and he later abandoned the orchestra almost entirely in his compositions. In his early career he wrote two concertos and three other concertante pieces, but always remained relatively indifferent to the orchestral elements of these works, often using the orchestra as a mere accompaniment to the much more brilliant piano part.

I think you will love this music too.

_I Think You Will Love This Music Too - Montage #302
"Claudio Arrau (1903-1991)"
All works performed by Claudio Arrau, piano_​
*Mily BALAKIREV (1837-1910)*
_Islamey _(Oriental Fantasy) (1869)

*Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)*
_Images II pour piano_, L. 111

*Franz LISZT (1811-1886)*
_Folies d'Espagne et jota aragonesa_ (Spanish Rhapsody), S. 254

*Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791) *
Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475

*Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-1849) *
2 Nocturnes, op. 48

Variations on 'La ci darem la mano' (After Mozart), op. 2
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Eliahu Inbal, conducting

_Internet Archive_- https://archive.org/details/pcast302


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