Chopin: Concertos, Ballades, Nocturnes, Preludes, "Scherzo"s, Waltzes
Claudio Arrau, piano. London Philharmonic Orchestra; Eliahu Inbal, conductor (concertos).
Philips 468 391–2. Recorded 1970–84. 7 compact discs.
Arrau’s Chopin: The Weight of Tradition
There’s something almost archaeological about this Philips box—seven discs spanning fifteen years of Arrau’s late career, recorded between 1970 and 1984, when the pianist was already in his seventies and eighties. One hears in these performances not merely Chopin but the ghost of Liszt himself, transmitted through Martin Krause to the young Chilean prodigy whom Krause called the greatest talent since his own teacher. That’s a heavy chain of custody.
The question, of course, is whether such pedigree matters when the actual sound emerging from the piano can feel so deliberate. Arrau’s Chopin is nothing if not considered. Every rubato seems weighed on jeweler’s scales, every melodic arch plotted with geometric precision. In the Preludes (recorded in the Netherlands, April 1973), one admires the architectural clarity—the left hand never merely accompanying but conversing, arguing, supporting. The famous Raindrop Prelude doesn’t patter; it broods with the gravity of someone who has thought deeply about precipitation.
This is interpretive pianism of enormous sophistication. The four Ballades reveal Arrau’s gift for long-line thinking, for hearing the narrative span of these quasi-programmatic works even when his tempo choices occasionally threaten to calcify the drama. The First Ballade begins with that haunting introduction—and yes, Arrau makes you wait for it, suspended in time like amber. When the main theme arrives, it’s with the nobility of old European culture, though perhaps not the impetuosity of youth that Chopin, dying at thirty-nine, never entirely abandoned.
The Nocturnes present a paradox. Arrau extracts extraordinary colors from the instrument—listen to the left-hand voicing in op. 27, no. 2, where the accompaniment seems to glow from within. Yet there’s a curious quality of emotional distance, as if we’re viewing these night pieces through museum glass. Neville Cardus once remarked that Arrau had his intellect in his fingers, and nowhere is this more apparent than in these performances. One respects them enormously. One doesn’t always love them.
The Waltzes fare better, perhaps because their dance origins resist overthinking. The A-flat Major, op. 34, no. 1, has genuine lilt, and the famous Minute Waltz (which Arrau naturally refuses to rush) maintains its charm even at a more spacious tempo. The "Scherzo"s—recorded in Germany as late as 1984, when Arrau was eighty-one—reveal astonishing technical command, though the Second "Scherzo"’s opening doesn’t quite terrify as it should. It’s too civilized for its own good.
Then there are the concertos, recorded back in 1970 with Inbal and the London Philharmonic, and these are something else entirely. Here the collaboration between pianist and orchestra produces magic that eludes much of the solo work. The orchestral playing is superb—those horn calls in the E Minor Concerto, emerging from the texture like distant hunting parties; the bassoon solos in the F Minor that make you remember why Chopin loved the woodwinds. Arrau’s aristocratic poise matches the LPO’s lustrous sound, and suddenly the deliberation that can feel studied in the solo works reads as grandeur. The slow movement of the E Minor has genuine poetry, the piano tone singing with that particular Arrau blend of power and refinement.
What we have here, finally, is a document of a particular tradition—nineteenth-century pianism filtered through a twentieth-century sensibility, recorded in the twilight of a great career. It’s Chopin for those who prefer their Romanticism tempered by reflection rather than inflamed by spontaneity. Young listeners raised on Zimerman or Pollini may find Arrau’s approach antique, his rubatos too calculated, his emotional temperature too controlled. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong.
But there’s wisdom in these performances, hard-won understanding of how these pieces fit together, how the left hand must balance the right, how a phrase can be shaped to reveal its inner logic. At bargain price, this set offers a chance to hear a master of the keyboard—and make no mistake, Arrau was that—commune with a composer he played throughout his long life. Whether that communion speaks to you will depend on whether you value meditation over spontaneity, architecture over impulse.
I find myself returning to the concertos, admiring the solo works, and wishing occasionally for more fire beneath all that carefully banked intellect.
