Listeners accustomed to the pastel shadings and suggestive hues Gieseking brought to this repertoire may be caught off guard by Arrau’s primary colors, bold, assertive brush strokes, and probing rhetoric. Few artists, however, have matched the stupendous level of pianism attained by Arrau in these late 1940s Columbia recordings–not even Arrau himself in his 1979 remakes. While the remastering is acceptable, both books of Images appear to have been transferred from a worn, scratchy LP, hence my less than favorable sound rating. In sum, this is a viable stopgap until Sony Masterworks Heritage restores these incomparable performances from scratch.
