Claudio Arrau

[JBS]

The contents are listed on presto. I think I noticed more than one set of Beethoven concertos. Probably more older mono recordings.

It's a little confusing sorting out duplicate recordings with that listing.
There's a Brahms 2 not in the Icon box, and the blurb mentions a Beethoven Op 109 never released on CD before.
But the recordings from the 20s and 30s are not enough to lure me, unless the price goes down a lot.

[Spotted Horses]

It's a little confusing sorting out duplicate recordings with that listing.
There's a Brahms 2 not in the Icon box, and the blurb mentions a Beethoven Op 109 never released on CD before.
But the recordings from the 20s and 30s are not enough to lure me, unless the price goes down a lot.

Same here.

[rachmaninoff]

What a pity to have no (pirate ) recordings of rach 2 or rach 3 with Arrau at the piano !  It seems he played these works between the two wars... 

[staxomega]

Other than the new mastering, what does it have that's not in the EMI Icon box, which I already have.

For reference--

The Icon box is also missing some Beethoven Piano Sonatas in the earlier "Beethoven Edition" from EMI, and that "Beethoven Edition" is missing Beethoven Piano Sonatas that were included in the Icon box. I had posted the differences between those two boxes on another board highlighting the differences on the images but they've been lost to the sands of time with Imageshack.



Back of the "Beethoven Edition"



To be honest if these weren't new transfers from Art&Son I'd put in more of an effort to look for what is new like I did with the Kempff "The Decca Legacy" (very little music that hasn't been on digital before, a good chunk of that his earlier late Brahms recordings that are played too briskly for me). The older EMI mastering is usually lacking in some way or another. It's on Qobuz so I'm not in any hurry to buy it.

[Mandryka]

The Icon box is also missing some Beethoven Piano Sonatas in the earlier "Beethoven Edition" from EMI, and that "Beethoven Edition" is missing Beethoven Piano Sonatas that were included in the Icon box. I had posted the differences between those two boxes on another board highlighting the differences on the images but they've been lost to the sands of time with Imageshack.



Back of the "Beethoven Edition"



To be honest if these weren't new transfers from Art&Son I'd put in more of an effort to look for what is new like I did with the Kempff "The Decca Legacy" (very little music that hasn't been on digital before, a good chunk of that his earlier late Brahms recordings that are played too briskly for me). The older EMI mastering is usually lacking in some way or another. It's on Qobuz so I'm not in any hurry to buy it.

the Woo variations is a high point  - listening into it for the first time in more than 10 years, and I'm impressed.  People who like what he does with the Waldstein used to say to me that that's a high point too, but I'm kind of not in the mood now.

[Spotted Horses]

To be honest if these weren't new transfers from Art&Son I'd put in more of an effort to look for what is new like I did with the Kempff "The Decca Legacy" (very little music that hasn't been on digital before, a good chunk of that his earlier late Brahms recordings that are played too briskly for me). The older EMI mastering is usually lacking in some way or another. It's on Qobuz so I'm not in any hurry to buy it.

What is "Art&Son?"

[Pohjolas Daughter]

What is "Art&Son?"

I'm curious too.

PD

[Jo498]

A French Transfer studio, AFAIK.

[Spotted Horses]

A French Transfer studio, AFAIK.

Sounded vaguely familiar. I looked up my Cluytens complete Warner box and it was done by Art & Son Studio. Good work, but not a game changer, IMO.

[George]

What is "Art&Son?"

They do wonderfully natural sounding transfers/mastering. When I see their name, I buy.

[JBS]

Thanks for the rundown.
Looks like I'll stick with the Icon box.

[staxomega]

the Woo variations is a high point  - listening into it for the first time in more than 10 years, and I'm impressed.  People who like what he does with the Waldstein used to say to me that that's a high point too, but I'm kind of not in the mood now.

That 32 Variations in C minor was nice. I personally prefer the opening of the Waldstein to be played with more brio, but otherwise a nice performance.

Sounded vaguely familiar. I looked up my Cluytens complete Warner box and it was done by Art & Son Studio. Good work, but not a game changer, IMO.

I have the huge Cluytens box, I thought it was an appreciable improvement over the Abbey Road Art transfers. I don't know if it's a game changer, usually the really bad older EMI transfers are from early in the mono era. I have not heard any of the 78/shellac material from this new Arrau box yet.

I'll copy and paste what I wrote on another forum

You bring up some good questions. It's up on Qobuz and I gave a listen to Chopin op. 25 Etudes (LP era cycle), Fantasy in F minor op. 49 (for some reason not listed on the back of the box but it is included), Piano Sonata 3, Beethoven Piano Concerto 3, and op. 101 and the transfers sound good to me. On op. 101 there was zero indication of any noise reduction- no pumping artifacts or "suck out" in the space between notes. Arrau's tone comes through clearly, there is a vibrancy in the upper registers, and it doesn't sound like any EQ was used to reduce tape hiss which is quite prominent.

Recording quality - EMI might be unfairly maligned here as these transfers reveal them to not be horrible. Still some deficiencies compared to Philips engineers, for instance some brittle quality of the trills in the Allegro at an active listening level.

I was planning to play more or less the whole box but I've been sucked back into the Chopin vortex and it takes a while to get out of this, plus still listening to tons of Spanish music. The pre-LP material will be a priority when I go back to Arrau (I have the Marston set and I think posted comparisons against Music & Arts somewhere in this thread, link), I will post back what I think of them. I am also excited to hear this unreleased recording of op. 109, one of my favorite works. The Arrau Complete Philips box had some Beethoven recorded in the 1950s (before the complete cycle) in fine sound, but no op. 109.

What I would have given anything for is more recordings from Harmonies poetiques et religieuses.

Thanks for the rundown.
Looks like I'll stick with the Icon box.

Just clearing this up as there is some misinformation in the above post:

op. 10/3  - present on Icon, not on Beethoven Edition
op. 78 - present on Icon, not on Beethoven Edition
op. 31/3 - present on Beethoven Edition, not on Icon
op. 27/2 - present on Beethoven Edition, not on Icon

[George]

Thanks for the rundown.
Looks like I'll stick with the Icon box.

You're very welcome, my friend. I never picked up the Icon box and I really love Arrau's playing, so I sprung for the new set. After posting my rundown last night, I looked at again and noticed some missing information and a few errors. It was too late to do the work though. I had some time today to update it so I will post it below.

[George]

CDs 1 & 2: All of Arrau's pre-war 78s are here, except for 9 Polydor titles. These 9 Polydor titles are on the 2CD Complete Pre War set by Marston. It is unknown if Arrau is the uncredited pianist in excerpts from trios by Beethoven and Schubert with violinist Andreas Weissgerber and his cellist brother Joseph.

CD 3: 1947 Beethoven Op. 31/3. 1947 Brahms PC 1 with Cameron and Philharmonia Orchestra. The sonata is on EMI's 5CD set - Claudio Arrau, Beethoven Edition (below I refer to this as Arrau Edition.) The concerto is on the Rarities Warner 3CD set. 

CDs 4 & 5: 1950 "Moonlight" sonata (Arrau Edition), 1951 Op. 10/3 (ICON), 1950 Chopin Scherzo 4 (Arrau Heritage) Liszt Valse oubliée, Liszt's Au bord d'une (Liszt works are FIRST RELEASES) Mozart K. 570 sonata (Warner Rarities 3CD set.)

CD 6: Beethoven's Fourth concerto w Galleria/Philharmonia. - EMI Arrau Edition/ICON

CDs 7 & 8: Chopin Etudes - EMI CD/ICON

CDs 9 & 10: Schubert Moments musicaux, D946, Wanderer Fantasy. - ICON

CD 11: Beethoven Waldstein sonata, 1950s Beethoven Op. 101 - EMI Arrau Edition/ICON

CD 12: Beethoven Third concerto, "Les Adieux" sonata - EMI Arrau Edition/ICON

CD 13: 1957 Schumann/Grieg concerto Galleria/Philharmonia - Testament and ICON

CD 14: EMI LvB Op. 109 (FIRST RELEASE), EMI Op. 110, 111 - EMI Arrau Edition/ICON

CDs 15 & 16: Live Arrau/Klemperer Beethoven Concertos Nos. 3 through 5 - Testament

CDs 17-20: Beethoven PC 1, 2 and 5 with Galleria, "Appassionata" sonata, 32 Var in C minor - ALL on EMI Arrau Edition and ICON,  Op.78 ICON

CD 21: Chopin B minor sonata, EMI Chopin F minor Fantasy - EMI CD/ICON

CD 22: Weber Konzertstücke, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 - ICON

CDs 23 & 24: Brahms concertos - Giulini and the Philharmonia Orchestra. - EMI CD

[Spotted Horses]

CDs 1 & 2: All of Arrau's pre-war 78s are here, except for 9 Polydor titles. These 9 Polydor titles are on the 2CD Complete Pre War set by Marston. It is unknown if Arrau is the uncredited pianist in excerpts from trios by Beethoven and Schubert with violinist Andreas Weissgerber and his cellist brother Joseph.

CD 3: 1947 Beethoven Op. 31/3. 1947 Brahms PC 1 with Cameron and Philharmonia Orchestra. The sonata is on EMI's 5CD set - Claudio Arrau, Beethoven Edition (below I refer to this as Arrau Edition.) The concerto is on the Rarities Warner 3CD set. 

CDs 4 & 5: 1950 "Moonlight" sonata (Arrau Edition), 1951 Op. 10/3 (ICON), 1950 Chopin Scherzo 4 (Arrau Heritage) Liszt Valse oubliée, Liszt's Au bord d'une (Liszt works are FIRST RELEASES) Mozart K. 570 sonata (Warner Rarities 3CD set.)

CD 6: Beethoven's Fourth concerto w Galleria/Philharmonia. - EMI Arrau Edition/ICON

CDs 7 & 8: Chopin Etudes - EMI CD/ICON

CDs 9 & 10: Schubert Moments musicaux, D946, Wanderer Fantasy. - ICON

CD 11: Beethoven Waldstein sonata, 1950s Beethoven Op. 101 - EMI Arrau Edition/ICON

CD 12: Beethoven Third concerto, "Les Adieux" sonata - EMI Arrau Edition/ICON

CD 13: 1957 Schumann/Grieg concerto Galleria/Philharmonia - Testament and ICON

CD 14: EMI LvB Op. 109 (FIRST RELEASE), EMI Op. 110, 111 - EMI Arrau Edition/ICON

CDs 15 & 16: Live Arrau/Klemperer Beethoven Concertos Nos. 3 through 5 - Testament

CDs 17-20: Beethoven PC 1, 2 and 5 with Galleria, "Appassionata" sonata, 32 Var in C minor - ALL on EMI Arrau Edition and ICON,  Op.78 ICON

CD 21: Chopin B minor sonata, EMI Chopin F minor Fantasy - EMI CD/ICON

CD 22: Weber Konzertstücke, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 - ICON

CDs 23 & 24: Brahms concertos - Giulini and the Philharmonia Orchestra. - EMI CD

I pulled up the booklet for the ICON box and see that most of the selections are masters from 1991, a few from 1988, and some of the more obscure recordings mastered in 2001 and later. Given that I have the ICON box and the rarities box, there is not much new material in the new release, and it's marginal whether I will find the new master noticeably better. I see that the set is available for lossless download, so I guess I could buy a representative track and decide if I find the sound noticeably better.

[George]

I pulled up the booklet for the ICON box and see that most of the selections are masters from 1991, a few from 1988, and some of the more obscure recordings mastered in 2001 and later. Given that I have the ICON box and the rarities box, there is not much new material in the new release, and it's marginal whether I will find the new master noticeably better. I see that the set is available for lossless download, so I guess I could buy a representative track and decide if I find the sound noticeably better.

In my case, I like the idea of the better mastering and the smaller shelf space that the new set has.

[Spotted Horses]

In my case, I like the idea of the better mastering and the smaller shelf space that the new set has.

I ripped mine to FLAC files, since I have no shelf space.

[George]

I ripped mine to FLAC files, since I have no shelf space.

I'm not there . . . yet. 

[George]

I have 5 Arrau recordings of Op 10/3 -- 1938, 1958, 1964, 1973 and 1985.

In terms of conception he's pretty consistent except for a slight lengthening of the largo to Schnabel style duration. I don't like any of the studio recordings much in fact. The 1985 seems the least interesting to me: slightly stiff and uninspired in the faster music and almost unbearable for me in the largo, which seems overworked, overnuanced. The 1958 and 1964 are less offensive - I like the way he plays the first movement for EMI; I like the way he plays the largo for the Philips Analogue.

The 1938 has good sound and is a very fine performance -- you can hear that distinctive Arrau tone a  bit even in the early recording. The tempos are faster than post war and many would say that that's no bad thing. It's a radio concert performance.

My favourite  is the 1973 -- by far. This is one of the  Arrau performances that I really treasure -- spontaneous, fiery, passionate, beautiful tone (the live concert recording on Hansler is excellent), a sense of inevitability to the flow of the music, a sense of ebb and flow, a coherence, a unity.

Mandryka's list of favourite Arrau Beethoven so far:

2/1 -- Philips Digital
2/2 -- Philips Analogue
2/3 -- 1938
7 -- Philips Digital
10/3 -- Hansler

Did you ever continue in your survey of the available recordings of Arrau's LvB? I'd be curious to read your findings.

Regarding the Digital set, I read a review that said the 1989-1990 recordings were particularly problematic, but I have yet to confirm this conclusively. However the digital recordings were made from 1984-1990 and many of them were from 1989-1990. Thirteen of the 32, in fact, were recorded from 1989-1990; 2, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16,  19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27 and 28.

I am deeply enjoying his digital Op. 7 as I type this.   

[Mandryka]

Did you ever continue in your survey of the available recordings of Arrau's LvB? I'd be curious to read your findings.

Regarding the Digital set, I read a review that said the 1989-1990 recordings were particularly problematic, but I have yet to confirm this conclusively. However the digital recordings were made from 1984-1990 and many of them were from 1989-1990. Thirteen of the 32, in fact, were recorded from 1989-1990; 2, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16,  19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27 and 28.

I am deeply enjoying his digital Op. 7 as I type this.   

No, I kind of lost interest in Beethoven to be honest.