Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849) - 24 Preludes Op. 28 / Remastered. 🎧 Qobuz bit.ly/3Mn318R Tidal bit.ly/3mjBlXR 🎧 Spotify spoti.fi/3aMsLOZ TH-cam Music amzn.to/3NV7LUd 🎧 Apple Music apple.co/3HO0kfW Amazon Music amzn.to/3xmL1XZ 🎧 Deezer bit.ly/3MgOP12 Amazon Store amzn.to/3xmL1XZ 🎧 Napster bit.ly/3Q2CMaL Soundcloud bit.ly/3GSdnfL 🎧 LineMusic日本 bit.ly/3GU27Q2 Awa日本 mf.awa.fm/3MhiG9L 00:00 Prelude No. 1, Op. 28 in C Major - Agitato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 00:41 Prelude No. 2, Op. 28 in A minor - Lento (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 02:34 Prelude No. 3, Op. 28 in G Major - Vivace (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 03:34 Prelude No. 4, Op. 28 in E minor - Largo (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 05:30 Prelude No. 5, Op. 28 in D Major - Allegro molto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 06:09 Prelude No. 6, Op. 28 in B minor - Lento assai (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 08:24 Prelude No. 7, Op. 28 in A Major - Andantino (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 09:20 Prelude No. 8, Op. 28 in F sharp minor - Molto agitato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 11:02 Prelude No. 9, Op. 28 in E Major - Largo (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 12:27 Prelude No. 10, Op. 28 in C sharp minor - Allegro molto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 12:58 Prelude No. 11, Op. 28 in B Major - Vivace (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 13:38 Prelude No. 12, Op. 28 in G sharp minor - Presto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 14:37 Prelude No. 13, Op. 28 in F sharp Major - Lento (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 17:53 Prelude No. 14, Op. 28 in E flat minor - Allegro (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 18:43 Prelude No. 15, Op. 28 in D flat Major - Sostenuto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 24:11 Prelude No. 16, Op. 28 in B flat minor - Presto con Fuoco (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 25:09 Prelude No. 17, Op. 28 in A flat Major - Allegretto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 28:33 Prelude No. 18, Op. 28 in F minor - Allegro molto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 29:20 Prelude No. 19, Op. 28 in E flat Major - Vivace (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 30:23 Prelude No. 20, Op. 28 in C minor - Largo (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 32:06 Prelude No. 21, Op. 28 in B flat Major - Cantabile (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 34:18 Prelude No. 22, Op. 28 in G minor - Molto agitato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 35:06 Prelude No. 23, Op. 28 in F Major - Moderato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) 36:05 Prelude No. 24, Op. 28 in D minor - Allegro Appassionato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960) Piano: Claudio Arrau Live recording in 1960, at the Prague Spring Festival New mastering in 2022 by AB for CMRR 🔊 FOLLOW US on SPOTIFY (Profil: CMRR) : spoti.fi/3016eVr 🔊 Download CMRR's recordings in High fidelity audio (QOBUZ) : bit.ly/370zcMg ❤ If you like CM//RR content, please consider membership at our Patreon page. Thank you :) www.patreon.com/cmrr Arrau's performances of Chopin have always been somewhat controversial, as he emphasizes the drama and turbulence in the music, using more fluctuations in tempo than some critics prefer. We can do no better than quote Arrau's own words on interpreting the Chopin Preludes in a discussion with Joseph Horowitz in Arrau on Music and Performance. CA: As I say, I never think of them as single pieces. They answer one another. When I finish one of them, I need to play the next. In a way, they are a survey of Chopin's cosmos. Alternating light and shade. JH: I recently heard a tape of a performance you gave of the preludes in Los Angeles in 1969. And in some instances you went directly from one prelude to the next, without a break, without any silence in between. That doesn't occur on your recording, because the engineers have inserted bands. CA: It reminds me a little bit of the connections between movements in late Beethoven. One movement erupts, in a completely different mood, out of the one before it. In Opus 109, for instance. Or Opus 101. JH: Which preludes do you usually begin without an intervening silence? CA: The B-flat minor [No. 16]. Also the D minor [No. 24]. JH: Could we go back to the First Prelude and talk about some of the preludes individually? CA: The First Prelude is definitely an introduction. An intensely dramatic introduction. It's over in half a minute or something. And it puts one in a certain tense emotional situation. It has something to do with sexual energy, this prelude. There's something positively orgasmic about it. JH: The music heaves and heaves towards a climax. CA: And that would explain the last bars with altered rhythm. In these three bars, iust before the climax, you don't breathe anymore. The A-minor Prelude [No. 2] is fantastically desolate. But the next prelude, in G [No. 3], has something to do with a friendly landscape, or with spring. JH: You make very much of the turn in the right hand [measure 17] - more, I think than any other pianist I've heard. And you take a big rubato to make room for it. CA: This is a period in which ornaments become part of the melodic line. Such ornaments should always be treated melodically in Chopin The E-minor Prelude [No. 41 is again melancholy I can't think of any other music in which the melody is iust two notes, and all the emotional events occur in the harmonic changes, shading the two notes with different colors and moods. And then when the expressivo phrases come in because of the monotony of the two notes, they make an incredible impact. JH: In the B-minor Prelude [No. 61 you stress the two-note sighing inflections in the right hand, almost as a countersubject to the melody in the left. Chopin is sometimes stigmatized as a one-handed composer. But I hear in your performances of a number of the preludes an unusual degree of individuality in both hands. In the G-sharp minor Prelude [No. 1 21 your left hand has such amazing energy and definition that the prelude practically becomes a contest between the hands. CA: You could say that the G-minor Prelude [No. 221 is a struggle between the hands. The ending is fantastic, The left hand keeps insisting on the same thing, and the right hand, not knowing what to do, ascends to the utmost treble. JH: I once heard you describe the E-flat Minor Prelude [No. 14] as the most "enigmatic" in the cycle. CA: The tempo is printed as largo in the Oxford edition, rather than allegro. That’s why I play it slowly. Chopin wrote it in with pencil or something. You know, it's sometimes interpreted in an impressionistic way. But to me this prelude is full of Qual - intense suffering. Exasperation. JH: The E-flat minor Prelude is often compared to the finale of the B-flat minor Sonata, which is also written as two lines an octave apart. CA: That finale has of course a lot to do with the Funeral March movement that precedes it. They used to call it "the wind over the grave." The E flat minor Prelude, especially if you play it at the slower tempo, is more anguished. JH: Another prelude that's enigmatic or elusive […] - because again there’s no melody to speak of - is the F minor [No.18]. CA: Oh yes. That's tremendous. There's a relationship between this and the second movement of the Beethoven G-major Piano Concerto. It's again two conflicting elements. The upper voice is pleading in an absolutely desperate way. And the answering chords are a furious denial. The denial grows stronger and stronger. There is a terrific struggle. Here, unlike in the G-major Concerto, there is no solution. The end is a collapse of the pleading voice. The final two chords are a rejection. JH: Do you want to say anything about the last several preludes as a group the way Chopin evolves toward a final statement? Is it fated, from the beginning, that the cycle will end so cataclysmically? CA: No. Only after the B-flat minor Prelude [No. 16], I would say, do you feel that his fundamental approach to life is tragic. The peaceful, positive preludes become like remembrances of the things that make life acceptable. Do you know Chopin's letter to his friend Titus [May 15, 1830] about the second movement of the E-minor Piano Concerto? About spring and the moonlight? The F-major Prelude [No. 23] is very much like that. A bit au bord d'une source [of Liszt]. JH: Do you have trouble integrating the F-major Prelude? Does it ever seem swallowed up by the G-minor [No. 22] and D-minor [No. 24]? CA: No, no. It's absolutely necessary this balancing, always showing the other side of life. If Chopin went directly from the G-minor to the D minor Prelude, they would kill one another. JH: And what about the D-minor Prelude CA: There is a famous description of it "blood, voluptuousness and death." That says everything. (The description of this Prelude by Alfred Cortot in his 1926 edition of the work). Chopin - The 20 Nocturnes / New Mastering (recording of the Century: Jan Smeterlin): th-cam.com/video/C1L2ikNz2RM/w-d-xo.html Frédéric François Chopin PLAYLIST (reference recordings): th-cam.com/video/r92pHa9VGzk/w-d-xo.htmlv
Je ne connaissais pas cet enregistrement live des préludes de Chopin par Arrau, merveilleuse version pleine de poésie, de ténèbres et de virtuosité avec un Claudio Arrau au sommet de son art pianistique tant digitalement qu'intellectuellement, une merveille absolue, j'ai toujours adoré l'immense Claudio Arrau
Arrau's performances of Chopin have always been somewhat controversial, as he emphasizes the drama and turbulence in the music, using more fluctuations in tempo than some critics prefer. We can do no better than quote Arrau's own words on interpreting the Chopin Preludes in a discussion with Joseph Horowitz in Arrau on Music and Performance. CA: As I say, I never think of them as single pieces. They answer one another. When I finish one of them, I need to play the next. In a way, they are a survey of Chopin's cosmos. Alternating light and shade. JH: I recently heard a tape of a performance you gave of the preludes in Los Angeles in 1969. And in some instances you went directly from one prelude to the next, without a break, without any silence in between. That doesn't occur on your recording, because the engineers have inserted bands. CA: It reminds me a little bit of the connections between movements in late Beethoven. One movement erupts, in a completely different mood, out of the one before it. In Opus 109, for instance. Or Opus 101. JH: Which preludes do you usually begin without an intervening silence? CA: The B-flat minor [No. 16]. Also the D minor [No. 24]. JH: Could we go back to the First Prelude and talk about some of the preludes individually? CA: The First Prelude is definitely an introduction. An intensely dramatic introduction. It's over in half a minute or something. And it puts one in a certain tense emotional situation. It has something to do with sexual energy, this prelude. There's something positively orgasmic about it. JH: The music heaves and heaves towards a climax. CA: And that would explain the last bars with altered rhythm. In these three bars, iust before the climax, you don't breathe anymore. The A-minor Prelude [No. 2] is fantastically desolate. But the next prelude, in G [No. 3], has something to do with a friendly landscape, or with spring. JH: You make very much of the turn in the right hand [measure 17] - more, I think than any other pianist I've heard. And you take a big rubato to make room for it. CA: This is a period in which ornaments become part of the melodic line. Such ornaments should always be treated melodically in Chopin The E-minor Prelude [No. 41 is again melancholy I can't think of any other music in which the melody is iust two notes, and all the emotional events occur in the harmonic changes, shading the two notes with different colors and moods. And then when the expressivo phrases come in because of the monotony of the two notes, they make an incredible impact. JH: In the B-minor Prelude [No. 61 you stress the two-note sighing inflections in the right hand, almost as a countersubject to the melody in the left. Chopin is sometimes stigmatized as a one-handed composer. But I hear in your performances of a number of the preludes an unusual degree of individuality in both hands. In the G-sharp minor Prelude [No. 1 21 your left hand has such amazing energy and definition that the prelude practically becomes a contest between the hands. CA: You could say that the G-minor Prelude [No. 221 is a struggle between the hands. The ending is fantastic, The left hand keeps insisting on the same thing, and the right hand, not knowing what to do, ascends to the utmost treble. JH: I once heard you describe the E-flat Minor Prelude [No. 14] as the most "enigmatic" in the cycle. CA: The tempo is printed as largo in the Oxford edition, rather than allegro. That’s why I play it slowly. Chopin wrote it in with pencil or something. You know, it's sometimes interpreted in an impressionistic way. But to me this prelude is full of Qual - intense suffering. Exasperation. JH: The E-flat minor Prelude is often compared to the finale of the B-flat minor Sonata, which is also written as two lines an octave apart. CA: That finale has of course a lot to do with the Funeral March movement that precedes it. They used to call it "the wind over the grave." The E flat minor Prelude, especially if you play it at the slower tempo, is more anguished. JH: Another prelude that's enigmatic or elusive […] - because again there’s no melody to speak of - is the F minor [No.18]. CA: Oh yes. That's tremendous. There's a relationship between this and the second movement of the Beethoven G-major Piano Concerto. It's again two conflicting elements. The upper voice is pleading in an absolutely desperate way. And the answering chords are a furious denial. The denial grows stronger and stronger. There is a terrific struggle. Here, unlike in the G-major Concerto, there is no solution. The end is a collapse of the pleading voice. The final two chords are a rejection. JH: Do you want to say anything about the last several preludes as a group the way Chopin evolves toward a final statement? Is it fated, from the beginning, that the cycle will end so cataclysmically? CA: No. Only after the B-flat minor Prelude [No. 16], I would say, do you feel that his fundamental approach to life is tragic. The peaceful, positive preludes become like remembrances of the things that make life acceptable. Do you know Chopin's letter to his friend Titus [May 15, 1830] about the second movement of the E-minor Piano Concerto? About spring and the moonlight? The F-major Prelude [No. 23] is very much like that. A bit au bord d'une source [of Liszt]. JH: Do you have trouble integrating the F-major Prelude? Does it ever seem swallowed up by the G-minor [No. 22] and D-minor [No. 24]? CA: No, no. It's absolutely necessary this balancing, always showing the other side of life. If Chopin went directly from the G-minor to the D minor Prelude, they would kill one another. JH: And what about the D-minor Prelude CA: There is a famous description of it "blood, voluptuousness and death." That says everything. (The description of this Prelude by Alfred Cortot in his 1926 edition of the work). 🔊 FOLLOW US on SPOTIFY (Profil: CMRR) : spoti.fi/3016eVr 🔊 Download CMRR's recordings in High fidelity audio (QOBUZ) : bit.ly/370zcMg ❤ If you like CM//RR content, please consider membership at our Patreon page. Thank you :) www.patreon.com/cmrr
@@classicalmusicreference Thank you for the update and, even though you had to take it down, I am thankful that you made me discover that wonderful interpretation!
There are two group of pieces that Chopin composed, the beautiful elegant dances, i.e. waltzes, SOME mazurkas, SOME polonaises, SOME etudes, SOME preludes/nocturnes and the rest of his pieces, i.e. sonatas, ballades, scherzi, etc that are from melancholic to dramatic/tragic,... Chopin is mostly a very tragic composer, and is an interpretative mistake to ONLY play it elegantly, lyrical and light, in my opinion, and worst of all, is to play it as a "right hand only" composer. I believe Arrau, plays both sides of Chopin, the elegant, lyrical, light, composer, but most importantly, the drama, passionate, virtuoso, tragic composer, like no one else always with his trademark beautiful deep sound
Wunderschöne live Aufführung dieser 24 romantischen unf fein komponierten Vorspiele in verschiedenen Tempi mit klarem doch warmherzigem Klang des technisch fehlerlosen Klaviers und mit künstlerisch kontrollierter Dynamik. Die verbesserte Tonqualität ist auch ziemlich hoch als eine live Originalaufnahme von zweiundsechzig Jahren vor. Alles ist wundervoll!
You're right, Arrau's Chopin has not always been to everyone's liking, it's more visceral and "meatier" than we're used to..........and this is a unique and interesting traversal. It's his long-considered penetration of the score, and it was good to hear it. Thank you for making it available.
Too often these are played as a set of bits and pieces...Arrau makes each prelude special in it's own right. His cantabile is superb. Thank you to Classical Music/ /Reference Recording for this rare and wonderful 'listen-in'.
I hate that; almost every concert program I see of a classical pianist is an odd chopin prelude, rachmaninoff, whatever. Or even worse, a sole movement from a multi-movement piece like a sonata - why??
28:33 Prelude No. 18, Op. 28 in F minor - Allegro molto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)-thanks so much for this fit my mood 100% now i just have to learn it🛌🛌💖💖🦜🦜
Moi qui déteste le style d'Arrau, j'ai toujours considéré ce live (comme celui des Etudes symphoniques au même moment) comme absolument extraordinaire, très au-dessus des autres interprétations.
Masterful performances. My only quibble has to do with the whirlwind tempo he chose for the B-flat minor. I've always felt that the faster the speed, the less musical sense this etude/prelude makes. Taken at, let's say, a "molto allegro" rather than a "prestissimo" tempo, the piece more successfully "registers" with the ear.
Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849) - 24 Preludes Op. 28 / Remastered.
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00:00 Prelude No. 1, Op. 28 in C Major - Agitato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
00:41 Prelude No. 2, Op. 28 in A minor - Lento (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
02:34 Prelude No. 3, Op. 28 in G Major - Vivace (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
03:34 Prelude No. 4, Op. 28 in E minor - Largo (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
05:30 Prelude No. 5, Op. 28 in D Major - Allegro molto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
06:09 Prelude No. 6, Op. 28 in B minor - Lento assai (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
08:24 Prelude No. 7, Op. 28 in A Major - Andantino (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
09:20 Prelude No. 8, Op. 28 in F sharp minor - Molto agitato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
11:02 Prelude No. 9, Op. 28 in E Major - Largo (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
12:27 Prelude No. 10, Op. 28 in C sharp minor - Allegro molto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
12:58 Prelude No. 11, Op. 28 in B Major - Vivace (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
13:38 Prelude No. 12, Op. 28 in G sharp minor - Presto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
14:37 Prelude No. 13, Op. 28 in F sharp Major - Lento (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
17:53 Prelude No. 14, Op. 28 in E flat minor - Allegro (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
18:43 Prelude No. 15, Op. 28 in D flat Major - Sostenuto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
24:11 Prelude No. 16, Op. 28 in B flat minor - Presto con Fuoco (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
25:09 Prelude No. 17, Op. 28 in A flat Major - Allegretto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
28:33 Prelude No. 18, Op. 28 in F minor - Allegro molto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
29:20 Prelude No. 19, Op. 28 in E flat Major - Vivace (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
30:23 Prelude No. 20, Op. 28 in C minor - Largo (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
32:06 Prelude No. 21, Op. 28 in B flat Major - Cantabile (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
34:18 Prelude No. 22, Op. 28 in G minor - Molto agitato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
35:06 Prelude No. 23, Op. 28 in F Major - Moderato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
36:05 Prelude No. 24, Op. 28 in D minor - Allegro Appassionato (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)
Piano: Claudio Arrau
Live recording in 1960, at the Prague Spring Festival
New mastering in 2022 by AB for CMRR
🔊 FOLLOW US on SPOTIFY (Profil: CMRR) : spoti.fi/3016eVr
🔊 Download CMRR's recordings in High fidelity audio (QOBUZ) : bit.ly/370zcMg
❤ If you like CM//RR content, please consider membership at our Patreon page.
Thank you :) www.patreon.com/cmrr
Arrau's performances of Chopin have always been somewhat controversial, as he emphasizes the drama and turbulence in the music, using more fluctuations in tempo than some critics prefer. We can do no better than quote Arrau's own words on interpreting the Chopin Preludes in a discussion with Joseph Horowitz in Arrau on Music and Performance.
CA: As I say, I never think of them as single pieces. They answer one another. When I finish one of them, I need to play the next. In a way, they are a survey of Chopin's cosmos. Alternating light and shade.
JH: I recently heard a tape of a performance you gave of the preludes in Los Angeles in 1969. And in some instances you went directly from one prelude to the next, without a break, without any silence in between. That doesn't occur on your recording, because the engineers have inserted bands.
CA: It reminds me a little bit of the connections between movements in late Beethoven. One movement erupts, in a completely different mood, out of the one before it. In Opus 109, for instance. Or Opus 101.
JH: Which preludes do you usually begin without an intervening silence?
CA: The B-flat minor [No. 16]. Also the D minor [No. 24].
JH: Could we go back to the First Prelude and talk about some of the preludes individually?
CA: The First Prelude is definitely an introduction. An intensely dramatic introduction. It's over in half a minute or something. And it puts one in a certain tense emotional situation. It has something to do with sexual energy, this prelude. There's something positively orgasmic about it.
JH: The music heaves and heaves towards a climax.
CA: And that would explain the last bars with altered rhythm. In these three bars, iust before the climax, you don't breathe anymore. The A-minor Prelude [No. 2] is fantastically desolate. But the next prelude, in G [No. 3], has something to do with a friendly landscape, or with spring.
JH: You make very much of the turn in the right hand [measure 17] - more, I think than any other pianist I've heard. And you take a big rubato to make room for it.
CA: This is a period in which ornaments become part of the melodic line. Such ornaments should always be treated melodically in Chopin The E-minor Prelude [No. 41 is again melancholy I can't think of any other music in which the melody is iust two notes, and all the emotional events occur in the harmonic changes, shading the two notes with different colors and moods. And then when the expressivo phrases come in because of the monotony of the two notes, they make an incredible impact.
JH: In the B-minor Prelude [No. 61 you stress the two-note sighing inflections in the right hand, almost as a countersubject to the melody in the left. Chopin is sometimes stigmatized as a one-handed composer. But I hear in your performances of a number of the preludes an unusual degree of individuality in both hands. In the G-sharp minor Prelude [No. 1 21 your left hand has such amazing energy and definition that the prelude practically becomes a contest between the hands.
CA: You could say that the G-minor Prelude [No. 221 is a struggle between the hands. The ending is fantastic, The left hand keeps insisting on the same thing, and the right hand, not knowing what to do, ascends to the utmost treble.
JH: I once heard you describe the E-flat Minor Prelude [No. 14] as the most "enigmatic" in the cycle.
CA: The tempo is printed as largo in the Oxford edition, rather than allegro. That’s why I play it slowly. Chopin wrote it in with pencil or something. You know, it's sometimes interpreted in an impressionistic way. But to me this prelude is full of Qual - intense suffering. Exasperation.
JH: The E-flat minor Prelude is often compared to the finale of the B-flat minor Sonata, which is also written as two lines an octave apart.
CA: That finale has of course a lot to do with the Funeral March movement that precedes it. They used to call it "the wind over the grave." The E flat minor Prelude, especially if you play it at the slower tempo, is more anguished.
JH: Another prelude that's enigmatic or elusive […] - because again there’s no melody to speak of - is the F minor [No.18].
CA: Oh yes. That's tremendous. There's a relationship between this and the second movement of the Beethoven G-major Piano Concerto. It's again two conflicting elements. The upper voice is pleading in an absolutely desperate way. And the answering chords are a furious denial. The denial grows stronger and stronger. There is a terrific struggle. Here, unlike in the G-major Concerto, there is no solution. The end is a collapse of the pleading voice. The final two chords are a rejection.
JH: Do you want to say anything about the last several preludes as a group the way Chopin evolves toward a final statement? Is it fated, from the beginning, that the cycle will end so cataclysmically?
CA: No. Only after the B-flat minor Prelude [No. 16], I would say, do you feel that his fundamental approach to life is tragic. The peaceful, positive preludes become like remembrances of the things that make life acceptable. Do you know Chopin's letter to his friend Titus [May 15, 1830] about the second movement of the E-minor Piano Concerto? About spring and the moonlight? The F-major Prelude [No. 23] is very much like that. A bit au bord d'une source [of Liszt].
JH: Do you have trouble integrating the F-major Prelude? Does it ever seem swallowed up by the G-minor [No. 22] and D-minor [No. 24]?
CA: No, no. It's absolutely necessary this balancing, always showing the other side of life. If Chopin went directly from the G-minor to the D minor Prelude, they would kill one another.
JH: And what about the D-minor Prelude
CA: There is a famous description of it "blood, voluptuousness and death." That says everything. (The description of this Prelude by Alfred Cortot in his 1926 edition of the work).
Chopin - The 20 Nocturnes / New Mastering (recording of the Century: Jan Smeterlin): th-cam.com/video/C1L2ikNz2RM/w-d-xo.html
Frédéric François Chopin PLAYLIST (reference recordings): th-cam.com/video/r92pHa9VGzk/w-d-xo.htmlv
Grazie per arrau ho molti interpreti di chopin nel mio cuore arrau ha un posto speciale per le tenebrosita chopeniane... Mia umile opinione
I so appreciate your presentation here without interruptions. That is rare on YT.
Je ne connaissais pas cet enregistrement live des préludes de Chopin par Arrau, merveilleuse version pleine de poésie, de ténèbres et de virtuosité avec un Claudio Arrau au sommet de son art pianistique tant digitalement qu'intellectuellement, une merveille absolue, j'ai toujours adoré l'immense Claudio Arrau
Arrau el mago genio en esta fotografia....
Also my favorite !!!!!
avec Cortot :)
Arrau's performances of Chopin have always been somewhat controversial, as he emphasizes the drama and turbulence in the music, using more fluctuations in tempo than some critics prefer. We can do no better than quote Arrau's own words on interpreting the Chopin Preludes in a discussion with Joseph Horowitz in Arrau on Music and Performance.
CA: As I say, I never think of them as single pieces. They answer one another. When I finish one of them, I need to play the next. In a way, they are a survey of Chopin's cosmos. Alternating light and shade.
JH: I recently heard a tape of a performance you gave of the preludes in Los Angeles in 1969. And in some instances you went directly from one prelude to the next, without a break, without any silence in between. That doesn't occur on your recording, because the engineers have inserted bands.
CA: It reminds me a little bit of the connections between movements in late Beethoven. One movement erupts, in a completely different mood, out of the one before it. In Opus 109, for instance. Or Opus 101.
JH: Which preludes do you usually begin without an intervening silence?
CA: The B-flat minor [No. 16]. Also the D minor [No. 24].
JH: Could we go back to the First Prelude and talk about some of the preludes individually?
CA: The First Prelude is definitely an introduction. An intensely dramatic introduction. It's over in half a minute or something. And it puts one in a certain tense emotional situation. It has something to do with sexual energy, this prelude. There's something positively orgasmic about it.
JH: The music heaves and heaves towards a climax.
CA: And that would explain the last bars with altered rhythm. In these three bars, iust before the climax, you don't breathe anymore. The A-minor Prelude [No. 2] is fantastically desolate. But the next prelude, in G [No. 3], has something to do with a friendly landscape, or with spring.
JH: You make very much of the turn in the right hand [measure 17] - more, I think than any other pianist I've heard. And you take a big rubato to make room for it.
CA: This is a period in which ornaments become part of the melodic line. Such ornaments should always be treated melodically in Chopin The E-minor Prelude [No. 41 is again melancholy I can't think of any other music in which the melody is iust two notes, and all the emotional events occur in the harmonic changes, shading the two notes with different colors and moods. And then when the expressivo phrases come in because of the monotony of the two notes, they make an incredible impact.
JH: In the B-minor Prelude [No. 61 you stress the two-note sighing inflections in the right hand, almost as a countersubject to the melody in the left. Chopin is sometimes stigmatized as a one-handed composer. But I hear in your performances of a number of the preludes an unusual degree of individuality in both hands. In the G-sharp minor Prelude [No. 1 21 your left hand has such amazing energy and definition that the prelude practically becomes a contest between the hands.
CA: You could say that the G-minor Prelude [No. 221 is a struggle between the hands. The ending is fantastic, The left hand keeps insisting on the same thing, and the right hand, not knowing what to do, ascends to the utmost treble.
JH: I once heard you describe the E-flat Minor Prelude [No. 14] as the most "enigmatic" in the cycle.
CA: The tempo is printed as largo in the Oxford edition, rather than allegro. That’s why I play it slowly. Chopin wrote it in with pencil or something. You know, it's sometimes interpreted in an impressionistic way. But to me this prelude is full of Qual - intense suffering. Exasperation.
JH: The E-flat minor Prelude is often compared to the finale of the B-flat minor Sonata, which is also written as two lines an octave apart.
CA: That finale has of course a lot to do with the Funeral March movement that precedes it. They used to call it "the wind over the grave." The E flat minor Prelude, especially if you play it at the slower tempo, is more anguished.
JH: Another prelude that's enigmatic or elusive […] - because again there’s no melody to speak of - is the F minor [No.18].
CA: Oh yes. That's tremendous. There's a relationship between this and the second movement of the Beethoven G-major Piano Concerto. It's again two conflicting elements. The upper voice is pleading in an absolutely desperate way. And the answering chords are a furious denial. The denial grows stronger and stronger. There is a terrific struggle. Here, unlike in the G-major Concerto, there is no solution. The end is a collapse of the pleading voice. The final two chords are a rejection.
JH: Do you want to say anything about the last several preludes as a group the way Chopin evolves toward a final statement? Is it fated, from the beginning, that the cycle will end so cataclysmically?
CA: No. Only after the B-flat minor Prelude [No. 16], I would say, do you feel that his fundamental approach to life is tragic. The peaceful, positive preludes become like remembrances of the things that make life acceptable. Do you know Chopin's letter to his friend Titus [May 15, 1830] about the second movement of the E-minor Piano Concerto? About spring and the moonlight? The F-major Prelude [No. 23] is very much like that. A bit au bord d'une source [of Liszt].
JH: Do you have trouble integrating the F-major Prelude? Does it ever seem swallowed up by the G-minor [No. 22] and D-minor [No. 24]?
CA: No, no. It's absolutely necessary this balancing, always showing the other side of life. If Chopin went directly from the G-minor to the D minor Prelude, they would kill one another.
JH: And what about the D-minor Prelude
CA: There is a famous description of it "blood, voluptuousness and death." That says everything. (The description of this Prelude by Alfred Cortot in his 1926 edition of the work).
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Were the sonatas of Beethoven by Arrau taken out by the way?
Otherwise, thank you very much for this wonderful channel!
@@diegohidafl Universal Music has blocked this post, we hope to work with them one day.
@@classicalmusicreference Thank you for the update and, even though you had to take it down, I am thankful that you made me discover that wonderful interpretation!
There are two group of pieces that Chopin composed, the beautiful elegant dances, i.e. waltzes, SOME mazurkas, SOME polonaises, SOME etudes, SOME preludes/nocturnes and the rest of his pieces, i.e. sonatas, ballades, scherzi, etc that are from melancholic to dramatic/tragic,... Chopin is mostly a very tragic composer, and is an interpretative mistake to ONLY play it elegantly, lyrical and light, in my opinion, and worst of all, is to play it as a "right hand only" composer. I believe Arrau, plays both sides of Chopin, the elegant, lyrical, light, composer, but most importantly, the drama, passionate, virtuoso, tragic composer, like no one else always with his trademark beautiful deep sound
Wunderschöne live Aufführung dieser 24 romantischen unf fein komponierten Vorspiele in verschiedenen Tempi mit klarem doch warmherzigem Klang des technisch fehlerlosen Klaviers und mit künstlerisch kontrollierter Dynamik. Die verbesserte Tonqualität ist auch ziemlich hoch als eine live Originalaufnahme von zweiundsechzig Jahren vor. Alles ist wundervoll!
Bravo Mr Arrau.
You're right, Arrau's Chopin has not always been to everyone's liking, it's more visceral and "meatier" than we're used to..........and this is a unique and interesting traversal. It's his long-considered penetration of the score, and it was good to hear it. Thank you for making it available.
Arrau, the one and the only!!
The first recording I heard of the Preludes almost 50 years ago was Arrau with the slow E flat minor. Great interpretations--thanks for posting.
The only prelude of Chopin in E flat minor es a fast one.
아름다운 피아노 연주곡 잘 들었습니다~감사합니다~🎵🎹🌿🍀☘🌹🌹☘🍀🌿❤❤수고 많으셨습니다~☕
Vintage Arrau. Thanks much.
Maestro Claudio Arrau 👏👏👏
Too often these are played as a set of bits and pieces...Arrau makes each prelude special in it's own right. His cantabile is superb. Thank you to Classical Music/ /Reference Recording for this rare and wonderful 'listen-in'.
Totally agree
I hate that; almost every concert program I see of a classical pianist is an odd chopin prelude, rachmaninoff, whatever. Or even worse, a sole movement from a multi-movement piece like a sonata - why??
@@helvete_ingres4717 out of all the recitals i've ever been to, i don't think i've ever seen a pianist program a single movement from a sonata?
My favourite piano performer ever.
Wow Bravo!!!!!!!👏👏💕
28:33 Prelude No. 18, Op. 28 in F minor - Allegro molto (Remastered 2022, Live 1960)-thanks so much for this fit my mood 100% now i just have to learn it🛌🛌💖💖🦜🦜
One of the GREATEST rendtions, literally.
Arrau's thumbs were impressive.
Thank you for great music!!! Bravo!!!
Impressionnant 16ème prélude !!
Maravillosa interpretación del maestro Arrau. 💕
El mejor Chopin,maravillosa interpretación....por cierto,curiosa y extraña fotografía de Arrau...siendo el un personaje muy conservador....
Classical Music! Magistral esse canal! Amo!
Moi qui déteste le style d'Arrau, j'ai toujours considéré ce live (comme celui des Etudes symphoniques au même moment) comme absolument extraordinaire, très au-dessus des autres interprétations.
Beautiful photo: Look me in the eyes!! You are in my power!!
Merci !!!
🌹🙏❤
Masterful performances. My only quibble has to do with the whirlwind tempo he chose for the B-flat minor. I've always felt that the faster the speed, the less musical sense this etude/prelude makes. Taken at, let's say, a "molto allegro" rather than a "prestissimo" tempo, the piece more successfully "registers" with the ear.
Arrau in his prime!!!
The grand wizard of Chile and Berlin casts a Chopin spell
big handsss!!
love the LARGO
Just hear no. 7, Arrau is ok - Rubinstein 1946 is a total angel of music.
Disagree
Wonderful interpretation but I can't stand the people coughing...
CORTOT........LE MIEUX
The BoogeyMan pose.
🌹❤🌹