Claudio Arrau: The 80th Birthday Recital

Fourth part of the successful 4-part Signature Performance Series.

Claudio Arrau, one of the twentieth century’s greatest pianists, offered this concert at New York City’s Avery Fisher Hall in 1983 to celebrate his 80th birthday. To a capacity crowd, Arrau demonstrates how he earned this reputation, and why he still deserves it.

A Herculean performance of two Beethoven sonatas, the ‘Waldstein’ and ‘Appassionata’, is followed by music of Debussy, Liszt and Chopin. In these six works, we see the truth of Arrau’s own words that ‘an interpreter must give his blood to the work interpreted.’

Picture format DVD: NTSC 4:3

Sounds formats DVD: PCM Stereo

Region code: 0

Original language: English

Subtitles: German, French, Spanish

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Running time: 111 mins