SONATE H-MOLL SONATE NO. 23 F

Arrau at 80 – as vital and virile as ever Recorded at the Salzburg Festival in 1982 when he was already 80, this epic recital (Beethoven’s Op 81a Sonata is omitted for reasons of length) comes as a reminder of Claudio Arrau’s unique stature. His grandeur is overwhelming, his rich saturated tone unmistakable. True, expressive points may be stretched to their limit, yet even if you feel that the intensity with which he endows even the simplest phrase is over-bearing, his daunting mastery is never in doubt. Here, surely, is the final fruit of years of blazing commitment to his art and to two composers central to his vast and encompassing repertoire. Fortunately the time is long past when Beethoven and Liszt might have been considered strange bed-fellows (the one profound, the other flashy and meretricious). And in Arrau’s magisterial hands you are made more than aware of the influence of Beethoven on Liszt (‘His work is like the pillar of cloud and fire which guided the Israelites th