Forget the muffled sonic quality of Claudio Arrau’s Beethoven/Schumann recital recorded for the BBC on October 16, 1960, and try to zero in on the remarkable performances. In contrast to the spontaneity and volatile drama Artur Schnabel and Bruce Hungerford bring to Beethoven’s inspired Op. 27 No. 1 “Fantasy”, Arrau’s measured tread follows a grander design. What fastidious runs, ornaments, balances, and dynamic control! By contrast, Arrau goes wild over the Schumann Fantasy, throwing emotional caution to the wind, with his huge technique and upholstered timbre totally intact. Few pianists in an unspliced environment, for example, can accelerate over the course of the central movement’s murderous skips, as if all the preceding music led up to this climax.
Arrau’s fantastic ability to untangle, clarify, and enliven Schumann’s polyphony spills over into Schoenberg’s Op. 11, recorded at the same March, 1959 BBC program that included Schubert’s Three Piano Pieces D. 946 (previously released on BBC Legends). He scrupulously considers each expressive and dynamic indication, and turns in the most eloquent and full-bodied performance of this opus I’ve ever heard. And as it happens, the sound quality is superior to that in the Beethoven and Schumann. This may be the only existing recording of Arrau playing Schoenberg, a priceless addition to his recorded repertoire that no Arrau fan or Schoenberg lover can miss.
