Arrau was still in his early fifties when he first recorded these works in mono. Not surprisingly his piano emerges less than wholly natural on this digitally remastered CD: in real life his tone is more beautiful. Even so, there is no mistaking the quintessential Arrau fullness and depth, bearing out a remark of his own quoted in Jeremy Siepmann's introductory appraisal: ''I am against anything that is edgy or cutting. My whole way of playing is against this kind of thing. In a way, the whole weight of my body goes into the keys to produce a certain powerful, rich, sensuous sound.''
This is particularly evident in the main work, the Wanderer, where he leaves you in no doubt as to why Liszt was moved to orchestrate it. The reading has a breadth and nobility all his own; detail is lovingly and searchingly cherished without ever obscuring the grandeur of the whole. His observance of every repeat in the Drei Klavierstucke, coupled with slower tempo than we often hear (especially in the contrasting trio sections of Nos. 1 and 2), gives them an extra dimension. Even the three Moments musicaux included testify to a mind never prepared to take even the most familiar Schubert for granted. (I was intrigued by his unusually detached, lightly pedalled left hand in the desolate minor key episodes of a characteristically leisurely No. 2, likewise his deliberate, clear-cut treatment of the ornaments in No. 3.) In sum, of the many distinguished Schubertians who have come my way recently, no one has done more to remind me of this composer's debt to Beethoven.'