Editing Claudio Arrau (section)

==Critics==
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*[[Olin Downes]], reviewing a recital of Mozart, Schumann, Ravel and Debussy works in ''The New York Times'', described Claudio Arrau as "a pianist of most exceptional equipment, imagination and unfailing taste."<ref name="NYT"/>
*In 1963, according to various critics, he was a man with "no equal at the present time in point of technical stature and depth of musical imagination," "the No. 1 pianist of our time," a "pianistic titan," a "lion of the piano," or, if you like, a "neo-Liszt from the Tropic of Capricorn".<ref name="Arrau60"/>
*[[Daniel Barenboim]] said that Claudio Arrau had a particular sound with two aspects: first a thickness, full-bodied and orchestral, and second an utterly disembodied timbre, quite spellbinding.<ref name="Roma Randles">{{cite book |author=Roma Randles |date=2013 |title=A Life in Music: Ruth Nye and the Arrau Heritage |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UstIfcNjvMoC&pg=PA1937 |publisher=Grosvenor House Publishing |page=1937 |isbn=978-1-78148-200-1 |access-date=January 21, 2015}}</ref> 
*[[Joachim Kaiser]]: "Arrau is the noblest, the most conscientious, most respectable pianist of our time."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://booklets.idagio.com/747313908486.pdf|format=PDF|title=CLAUDIO ARRAU : KLAVIERKONZERTE|website=Booklets.idagio.com|access-date=February 6, 2025}}</ref>
*[[Sir Colin Davis]] said: "His sound is amazing, and it is entirely his own... no one else has it exactly that way. His devotion to Liszt is extraordinary. He ennobles that music in a way no one else in the world can."<ref name="Roma Randles"/> 
*According to American critic [[Harold C. Schonberg]], Arrau always put "a decidedly romantic piano tone in his interpretations".<ref>Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present, Simon & Schuster, Second Edition (1987)</ref> 
*Karl Schumann, Germany's leading music critic, said in the ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' on June 2, 1986: "Is it not Claudio Arrau who is the most musical and deeply serious piano phenomenon of our time?".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.princeton.edu/~gpmenos/gift_of_constant_renewal.html|title=CLAUDIO ARRAU -GIFT OF SELF-RENEWAL|website=Princeton.edu|access-date=February 6, 2025}}</ref>
*According to [[Joseph Horowitz]]: "His earliest recordings, extending into the forties, are his most mercurial, and are buffed with the glistening tonal refinements mentioned in his early New York reviews. His recorded performances of the following decade or so are more majestically placed; given room to maneuver, he is more likely to linger than to bolt. (...) Then, sometimes around 1960, the recordings document a different change. An emerging undercurrent of raw feeling not only dictates yet slower tempos and grander rubatos, but adds to the dignified architecture of Arrau's sound a steady projection of human frailty. (...) How did this change come about? (...) At the risk of resorting to cut-rate psychology, I am tempted to cite, as well, the event Arrau recalls as 'the greatest shock in my life': his mother's death in 1959. Perhaps mourning opened new emotional pathways. Perhaps the disappearance of a pervasive authority figure freed or emboldened him to make a more vulnerable statement in his art."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Conversations With Arrau|year=1982|pages=256–257}}</ref>
*John von Rhein wrote in 1991 in the ''Chicago Tribune'': "He was among the least flamboyant of pianists, avoiding virtuosic display as rigorously as some pianists seek it out; yet there was never any doubt of his virtuoso technique. He commanded a rich sonority, each chord superbly weighted, the fingerwork a model of finely chiseled clarity, the shape of each phrase deeply considered. Sometimes Mr. Arrau's penchant for slow tempos and emphasis on inner detail could seem fussy, depriving his performances of spontaneity and momentum. At his considerable best, however, he was among the most deeply satisfying interpreters of Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin and particularly Beethoven, whose works held a position in his repertoire comparable to that of his great colleague, pianist [[Rudolf Serkin]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1991/06/10/world-renowned-pianist-claudio-arrau/|title=World-renowned Pianist Claudio Arrau|author=John von Rhein|website=[[Chicago Tribune]]|date=June 10, 1991}}</ref>