Lili Kraus – born in Budapest in 1905 – was already a much-admired recording artist before the Second Wolrd War, thanks to her recordings of Mozart violin sonatas with the violinist, Szymon Goldberg, already reissued by Pearl. A fair number of her post-war recordings, mainly of Mozart, have been reissued on CD, and in 1991 Sony in their Legendary Interpretations series brought out a set of the Mozart piano sonatas recorded in 1967-8 soon after she had given a whole sonata cycle in concert in New York.
This latest issue offers the recordings of the sonatas and shorter pieces which Lili Kraus made 13 years earlier for the Haydn Society, and the contrasts are fascinating. (Incidentally, in both these cycles Kraus omits the composite Sonata in F, K433/K491, which Mozart created by adding to two late movements an earlier Rondo in less complex style.) The 1954 mono recordings have a closer, more immediate balance which, properly adjusted, gives a firmer, clearer focus than the Sony stereo recordings, which are relatively shallow. That allows one to appreciate more the diamond clarity of Kraus’s playing with its high dynamic contrasts, even if pianissimos are not as hushed as they might be.
Interpretatively, though the differences are marginal, I have no hesitation in preferring these earlier performances to those of 1967-8. They are not only more dramatic, but more spontaneous-sounding too with firmer technical control. It is noticeable that in the later performances Kraus tends to press ahead in Allegros and in slow movements to let the pulse grow unsteady, a characteristic barely hinted at in 1954. In his excellent note Bernard Jacobson singles out the finale of K332 in F, in which “the torrential zest of the movement never flags under Ms Kraus’s hands, yet the listener always knows exactly where in the measure she is at any moment”. That is truer of 1954 than of 1968, with the earlier performance wittier in its rhythmic subtleties. Jacobson also remarks on what he regards as Kraus’s bel canto style with its velvety legato.
Where I am less happy is in the sonata which comes immediately after the F major, K333 in B flat, in which she seems too heavy-fingered in the outer movements, a touch impatient with no room for charm. That is very much an exception, and such extended pieces as the C minor Fantasy or the great B minor Adagio, K540, emerge the greater for her magnetic concentration. When Kraus has never been given her full due on disc, it is good to welcome this set as such a positive, enjoyable experience, with mono sound well transferred to make it firm and vivid.'