It’s truly amazing what one can find on YouTube these days. Back when I was collecting classical piano records, Lili Kraus was often recommended as an interpreter of Mozart piano sonatas, and I dutifully added her complete set on Sony to my shelves.
Yesterday I had a yen to play through the slow movement of Mozart’s C major sonata No. 7. (Not a famous piece, but one that I worked on when younger.) Eventually I thought I should listen to Kraus in this movement. It was great, of course. That led me down the YouTube wormhole…
I’ve heard the small set of Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 56 a few times, including Bartók’s own recording. Somehow the video of Kraus in 1961 makes this set a completely new piece. I love everything about it: her touch, rhythm, even the way she looks sitting at the piano. It’s very “jazzy,” for lack of a better word. (I see Earl Hines in there for sure.)
Haydn is becoming more important to me. I always liked him but these days I’m hearing something I need for my own work. Kraus in the A flat sonata (Hob. XVI/46) is just unreal. The complex melodic line is so strong and confident without being mechanical. Kraus does her own thing with the ornamentation and adds in her own little cadenza before the recapitulation. Yeah.
As far as I know, one cannot get a commercial issue of Kraus playing any Haydn sonatas. Thanks to the mysterious “gullivior” for uploading so many pianistic rarities to YouTube, including this 1955 Haydn performance by Lili Kraus.
I think Trifonov's different from what you're liking in these archival Haydn recordings, but what the heck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIEqFuwUbwU
Partly it's the piece itself that fascinates me, the first movement mostly just reiterations of the theme, more Nefertiti than sonata-allegro