Claudio Arrau plays Liszt Sonata in B minor (1/4)

Master pianist Claudio Arrau performs Franz Liszt's Sonata in B minor. With no doubt one of the greatest piano pieces ever.
Part I

Category:

Music

Tags:

• claudio
• arrau
• classical
• liszt
• sonata
• in
• minor
• franz

[libetta]

i wonder why people mark horowitz' 1930's recording as the benchmark for this work

[Jakopsohn]

The thing i can feel is so..boring with richter liszt ( i love richter but not in the sonata). i that the whole sonata is just a show off for furiosity and speed..it's just an empty shell compared to Arraus delicate astonishing playing. Richter maybe gives us a glimps of hell, but Arraus shows us all the glory of the lords paradise, and in that case i could enter there right now. What Arrau did with Liszt can never be surpassed by anyone, it's impossible for us and so it was for his colleges

[ipublica]

There is also a recording of a violin Sonate by Beethoven that Arrau play with Grumiaux that is something unique in the whole piano literature, as all Beethoven's subtle humor comes out in a way I can only consider as genial. Richter was always very serious, and that is not a reproach, considering that he was a child of the Soviet epoch, as Andrei Gavrilov made it very clear to me in our correspondence. I did not understand before exchanging with him. We do not grow in a vacuum but in a field.

[ipublica]

Don't get me wrong, I do consider Richter as a universal genius just like Leonardo, as I point in one of my books (Do You Love Einstein?) Find it on amazon.com, if you like. There is something unique when comparing Richter with Arrau. It is that Arrau never overdoes tempi, while Richter does that, not regularly, but certainly with this Sonata, of which there is no recording that is not a soup of wrong notes, while some passages come out like God playing with His Angels.

[ipublica]

Sorry, I posted this comment under my wrong identity. I am more known as ipublica here, as that site is so much bigger than authoryourlife. I would like to add this also. Neuhaus, Richter's teacher, was not the type of musician who could play a Liszt in the perfection of Krause, a distant relative of Franz Liszt, via Siloti. Correct me if I am wrong. The whole artistry of Arrau is one of total freedom, there is no heavy touch as you have it with Richter, which is perfect for interpreting Bartók.

[authoryourlife]

@libetta Very good remark, indeed. Look at how Arrau plays it, a pupil of Krause, one of the best Liszt plays the world has known. Even Richter, through I am a real Richer fan, as many on this site know, cannot keep up. Why? For playing Liszt, you cannot use effort and emotion, as Richter does, thereby playing more wrong than right notes, but an, excuse me, if you find this offending, German teacher who teaches lightness of touch and total freedom, and a never-ending detachment.

[davidbaker03]

@boxers7x5 Good points, however you must know that in order to play with a high level of technical quality, such as martha argerich, one could never "bang". Her playing is one of the most precise, and meticulously practiced in all pianists. the word banging implies a very hap hazard, and careless way of playing, with no thought. That is absolutely not the way to play with such precision. To achieve her quality of playing, the body is perfectly relaxed, therefore never "forced"

[boxers7x5]

@davidbaker03

Arrau learnt from Krause that a pianist should be ready to play “any moment’and that he should always give the impression that he could play 10 times faster or louder. Triple forte is just that and nothing more, and strepitoso means noisy/forceful. One should be playing with elasticity, never banging.

[davidbaker03]

@boxers7x5 you must not be a very serious musician. Liszts music is very bangy. He writes tons of octaves at a "FFF" dynamic, which will not be executed any way but "bangy" - - Also he uses "strepitoso" more than I've seen any other composer, which is defined in some dictionaries as "bangy, noisy, clangy" - - - -Martha Argerich is certainly one of the best performers of Liszt Sonata.

[boxers7x5]

@davidbaker03

That makes no sense whatsoever.

[davidbaker03]

@boxers7x5 if you don't like banging, don't listen to Liszt

[boxers7x5]

@meredith21846

Well said.