Beethoven - Piano Concerto 3 [Arrau/ Davis-Staatskapelle Dresden] Another truly wonderful complete Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle, housed in a triple disc fatbox, this is now extremely rare and highly desirable, i haven't had this set for very long, and actually this is the first time i've got round to playing it, the Third Concerto used to easily be my second most favourite Concerto by Beethoven, but now the Fourth is vying for that place, again i'm wowed by the genius of Beethoven.
Claudio Arrau was born in Chile in 1903, he lived a long and productive life, and died in 1991 at the age of 88, he recorded this Third Concerto in 1987, only 4 years before his death, the photography for this box set [by Christian Steiner] is very nice, a fairly soft glow picture of Arrau in bow tie, with the piano behind him, the white lettering nicely stands out, a treasured box set already, and hard to get hold of, i only see these original sets on Ebay very rarely, just a note about this box set, the Third Piano Concerto is split between discs two and three, this is absurd, it can easily fit on the second disc with the Fourth Concerto, i haven't a clue why they did this.
The slow movement of this Concerto is one of the most favourite things i like about Beethoven, it has a dreamy lyrical romanticism about it,
Here's Paul Lewis playing the second movement on YouTube.
