Those of us who were lucky enough to attend piano recitals in London in the late 1970s and early 80s look back on it now as a golden age. Not only were the postwar generation that included Maurizio Pollini, Radu Lupu, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim and Murray Perahia at the height of their powers, and Martha Argerich was still giving solo recitals, but almost all of the greatest pianists of the second half of the 20th century – Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Annie Fischer, Rudolf Serkin – were more less regular visitors to the capital. And though since his death in 1991 his reputation and his considerable recorded legacy seem to have faded from view, Claudio Arrau unquestionably belonged among that senior elite, too, every one of his appearances, whether in concertos or recitals, eagerly anticipated.

A reminder of just how rewarding Arrau’s playing could be in those years is provided by this collection of recordings of three recitals that the Chilean pianist gave in the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, California, in 1977, 1981 and 1986. The layout of the discs follows the original programmes exactly – the first recital Beethoven, Liszt and Brahms, the second devoted to Beethoven, Schumann, Debussy, Chopin and Liszt, the third to four Beethoven sonatas, including richly satisfying performances of the Waldstein Sonata Op 53 and Les Adieux Op 81a. Arrau’s rich, almost plummy piano sound is recognisable from the very first bars, as is his emphatic phrasing, which can sometimes seem out of place in Debussy or Schumann, but is wonderfully appropriate in Beethoven, Liszt and Brahms, and is combined with an unfaltering sense of structure; so that where each performance is, and where it is heading, are never in doubt. It’s all beautifully lucid playing, which hasn’t dated in the slightest.

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