At eighty, the brilliant pianist Claudio Arrau plays passionately on, but successors in the Romantic tradition are hard to find.
Is Claudio Arrau the greatest pianist in the world? He turned eighty this year, and the occasion is being marked with much rejoicing. Born in Chile, trained in Germany, and now residing in the U.S., Arrau has been giving celebratory concerts in America and Europe. Knopf has published a biography, Conversations With Arrau, by Joseph Horowitz, that is one of the most illuminating books ever written about a living musician. His many recordings are being re-released in boxes of the sort more often used to memorialize centenaries of composers than birthdays of performers. The best among them comes from Philips Records, which has been the pianist's label for the last two decades. The Arrau Edition (6768 350 through 357) is eight boxed sets devoted to individual composers, remastered and offered at bargain prices. The 58 records comprise works by Beethoven (concertos on 6 discs and sonatas and variations on 14 discs), Schubert (4 discs), Schumann (10 discs), Chopin (9 discs), Liszt (7 discs), Brahms (5 discs), and Debussy (3 discs). The selections represent the heart of the piano repertoire, and the performances substantiate the claim that Claudio Arrau is the dean and master of Romantic pianists.
The significant thing about these records is that the most recent performances are the best. Of how many other octogenarian instrumentalists is that true? Certainly it is not the case for Arrau's contemporaries and rivals, Vladimir Horowitz and Rudolf Serkin. Both have overshadowed Arrau for most of their careers, but in their latest recordings their technical proficiency has fallen off noticeably. During the last two years, the notorious Horowitz played highly publicized recitals at the Metropolitan Opera House and at London's Royal Festival Hall, and the records of those performances (Horowitz at the Met, RCA ATC1-4260, and Horowitz in London, RCA ARCl4572) are sad documents. The Chopin Polonaise-Fantaisie, Opus 61, on the latter displays neither the transcendent technique nor the volatile excitement of Horowitz's 1966 recording (Horowitz Plays Chopin, Columbia M 30643). Similarly, Serkin's recent recordings on Telarc and Deutsche Grammophon show the ravages of time on the pianist's dexterity.
But Arrau goes on, playing better than ever. His tempos have slowed down over the years - there are drastic differences between his performances of any piece he has recorded more than once - but there can be no doubt that the changes result from conviction rather than physical necessity. He plays Liszt's frighteningly demanding Transcendental Etudes with commanding technique. His newest release, a Liszt potpourri (Philips 6514 273), displays Arrau's blazing emotional fervor and sincerity. It makes the most convincing case on records for Liszt as a major composer.
The deepening of Arrau's insight as he has aged may perhaps best be seen in the Schubert box, which contains many recent recordings. One, that of the A Major Sonata, D. 959, was previously unavailable in America. Arrau believes that Schubert's late sonatas reveal a preoccupation with death, which the composer knew was upon him. The A Major Sonata, published posthumously, is the most cheerful and aggressive of Schubert's last three sonatas, yet Arrau molds it to his conception without sounding arbitrary or injudicious. The first movement, though rather slow, has plenty of momentum and bounce, and the third and fourth movements swing with rhythmic definition. Arrau gives the slow second movement its most haunted and moving treatment ever - he tears into the violent central section passionately and brings forth pity and terror. He shades the reflective passages of the fourth, and last, movement to recall the emotions of the second movement, bringing a profound unity to the performance.
The indispensable boxes of the Arrau Edition are the Liszt, the Schubert, and the Brahms, which is full of near-perfect performances. The more I listen, though, to the rest of the edition, the less I want to be without any of Arrau's interpretations and their sometimes quirky insights. Another major commemorative recording is Claudio Arrau: A Retrospective (CBS M3 37866), which contains performances of Liszt, Schumann, Chopin, Debussy, and Ravel from the late forties and early fifties. Comparing the CBS and Philips versions of Schumann's Kreisleriana shows the earlier Arrau to be a mainstream interpreter and the later Arrau to be more individual, even slightly eccentric, but tantalizing. Perhaps the real asset of the CBS box is the sample of five of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies. Both the music and the playing are far less solemn and imposing than in the Philips box; it is refreshing to hear the earlier Arrau indulge in a romp.
Still, it is to the Philips Arrau Edition that I will return again and again when I want to hear the central Romantic repertoire played with passion and insight. Nobody else plays the Chopin waltzes like Arrau - often very slowly and with alarming rhythmic liberties but also with unparalleled drama and sweetness. Nobody else plays the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor with such majestic weight and power. Nobody else plays Schubert's last piano sonata, in B-flat Major, with such poignancy - the end of the development section of the first movement can always wring a tear. Looking for a successor to Arrau can be a depressing business. The last thirty years have seen the disappearance of many gifted pianists who would now be reaching their prime in their fifties and sixties. Dinu Lipatti and William Kapell died young, Van Cliburn has virtually retired, and Leon Fleisher, because of a crippled right hand, has been concentrating on music for the left hand. They were the natural heirs of the nineteenthcentury repertoire.
Those who love the piano and pianists are probably becoming apoplectic because I have not considered the claims of Sviatoslav Richter, who is certainly one of the world's most talented pianists. But Richter, who will be seventy next year, has long suffered from ill health. His appearances in the West have been infrequent, and his recordings grow rare. The most recent solo performance to be released here, in late 1982 (Vox Cum Laude D-VCL 9027), dates from his appearances in Japan almost five years ago. It contains two Schubert sonatas; the one in A Major, Opus 120 (an earlier, shorter. gentler piece than the one discussed above) has long been a Richter specialty. His performance from the early sixties (now available on Angel RL-32078) is an old favorite of mine, flowery, delicate, and joyful. The newer version is dirgelike and suffocating - one of the least appealing performances of Schubert I have heard. It's unlikely that Richter's future performances of Romantic pieces will match those he has given us in the past.
There are other pianists who might succeed Arrau, except that they are not comfortable with nineteenth-century music. Typically, they play Beethoven and modern composers fabulously but seem lost in Chopin and Liszt (if they play them at all). Maurizio Pollini, for all his Chopin credentials, seems to be one of these, and he has not been active in the recording studio lately. Charles Rosen, the most important middle-aged American pianist now performing regularly, is in the same category. His newest record, on the small Dutch label Etcetera (ETC 1008), contains two staggering performances of works by American composer Elliott Carter: the 1946 Piano Sonata and the 1980 Night Fantasies. Surprisingly, since American compositions are so scarce on records, Paul Jacobs' performance of both works (Nonesuch 79047) was released at the same time, and it is just about as good as Rosen's - less impetuous and overwhelming but still brilliant.
A much likelier candidate for elderstatesman status is Ivan Moravec. He is a Czech pianist, now in his fifties, who made a notable series of Chopin and Beethoven records back in the sixties for a small American company - the aptly named Connoisseur Society. Only occasional recordings have come forth since, but in the last year two companies have released American performances by Moravec. Neither is of Romantic works, but both display an aristocratically Romantic temperament. On Ivan Moravec Plays Debussy (Vox Cum Laude D-VCL 9037), he performs Images and Estampes with uncannily liquid tone and rhythm. The other album contains Sonata I. X. 1905, In the Mist, and excerpts from On an Overgrown Path, by Leos Janacek (Nonesuch Digital 79041). They are fascinating to compare with the versions by Rudolf Firkusny, just re-released by Deutsche Grammophon (2721 251). In Firkusny's hands, Janacek's music sounds classic - and Firkusny's interpretations are considered just that - while in Moravec's it sounds mystical, dreamy, misty. Moravec has a lushly individualistic sensibility, though his idiosyncracies are subtle and tasteful. His playing is unlike any other pianist's, and I hope these releases mark the beginning of a new round of recordings.
Among the pianists whose names are better known, I have the highest hopes for Vladimir Ashkenazy. He has spent a lot of time playing and recording Mozart and Beethoven - with only middling success. But in a series of the complete piano music of Chopin, Ashkenazy takes a unique and most rewarding approach by recording Chopin's works in roughly chronological groupings rather than by genres. A single disc might include a mix of waltzes, nocturnes, mazurkas, and polonaises - much more attractive than the hour or two of one type of work usually presented. The latest volume, number thirteen (London LDR 71084), contains wonderful performances of some of Chopin's early music. (The fifteen volume series is arranged in reverse chronological order.) Volume two (London CS 7022), released several years back, contains Chopin's last compositions -including the best Polonaise-Fantaisie of the dozens I have heard. The eight volumes released to date mark the project as one of the most important series of records now in progress. It promises to be the basic set of Chopin for every library, and it is already proof that Ashkenazy has great talent for the Romantic piano repertoire.
Ashkenazy's Chopin is beautifully balanced between repose and abandon. Two other musicians, both in their forties, split those qualities right down the middle. The pianist of abandon is Martha Argerich, a favorite of mine; I am sorry that she has not released a recording recently, and I hope the lack is remedied soon. Her temperamental opposite is Stephen Bishop Kovacevich. While Argerich excels in Liszt, Schumann, and the wilder Chopin, Bishop Kovacevich's forte is Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert. His new Brahms recital (Philips 6514 229) is autumnal and memorable, but even more satisfying is his new Schubert B-flat Sonata (Hyperion A66004). It is similar to Arrau's in its slow tempos and its depth, but it is far less weighty.
The most logical successors to Arrau are the two pianists who are in many ways most like him, Alfred Brendel and Daniel Barenboim. Their Germanic styles (though Barenboim is an Argentine-born Israeli), their repertoires centering on Beethoven, Liszt, and Brahms, and above all their passionate, sometimes dogged seriousness put them in the same tradition from which the Chilean master has grown. Brendel has recently recorded the B-Minor Sonata (Philips 6514 147), the one piece by Liszt that almost everybody takes seriously, but he has also dug up some obscure Liszt, on Philips 9500 775. He is more like the younger Arrau at times, preferring somewhat quicker tempos, though he can lack the young Arrau's gracefulness. Barenboim plays with an unpredictability akin to the more recent Arrau, and he is almost the only younger pianist about whom Arrau has something nice to say in Horowitz's book. Comparisons of Arrau and Barenboim in Chopin's nocturnes, which Barenboim recently released on DG 2741 012, show how sāmilar the two can be in tempo and rubato but how different in effect. Arrau's crystalline tone produces a starry night sky, while Barenboim's nocturnal scenes are foggy, even murky. Neither Barenboim nor Brendel can compete with the aging Arrau, on balance, but then neither can the Arrau of thirty or forty years ago.
What Arrau's career demonstrates is that no artistic pathway can be fully assessed until it has been fully traversed - who could have predicted when Arrau was forty or even sixty what his playing was going to be like when he was approaching eighty? That is why I do not even bother to bring up the names of the pianists still in their youth, some of whom even seem to have a touch of the everrarer Romantic spirit. We can only hope that some will grow, as Arrau has, into a magnificent old age.
It's possible that with the extension of the piano repertoire into the twentieth century and beyond, the Romantic pieces will become an outdated specialty. Already there is a movement afoot to treat them with the same antiquarian historicism - rebuilding or rehabilitating pianos of the sort Chopin actually played on, and so forth - that now is necessary for a respectable performance of eighteenth-century music. The farther away, temporally and spiritually, the nineteenth century becomes, the more important a document the Arrau Edition will be. Even if Claudio Arrau is indeed the last great Romantic pianist, his performances will live forever.
by W.L.Taitte Texas Monthly/October 1983
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