Claudio Arrau León (Spanish:[ˈklawðjoaˈraw]; February 6, 1903 – June 9, 1991) was a Chilean and American pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning thebaroque to20th-century composers, especiallyBach,Mozart,Beethoven,Schubert,Chopin,Schumann,Liszt andBrahms. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.[1]
Arrau was born inChillán, Chile, to Carlos Arrau, anophthalmologist who died when Claudio was only one year old, and Lucrecia León Bravo de Villalba, a piano teacher. He belonged to an old, prominent family of Southern Chile. His ancestorLorenzo de Arrau was aSpanish engineer who was sent to Chile by KingCarlos III of Spain. Through his great-grandmother, María del Carmen Daroch del Solar, Arrau was a descendant of theCampbells of Glenorchy, a Scottish noble family.[2] Arrau was raised as aCatholic, but gave it up in his late teens.[3]
Claudio Arrau, November 1929
Arrau was achild prodigy and he could read music before he could read words, but unlike manyvirtuosos, there had never been a professional musician in his family. His mother was an amateur pianist and introduced him to the instrument. At the age of four, he was reading Beethoven sonatas, and he gave his first concert a year later.[4] When Arrau was six, he auditioned in front of several congressmen and PresidentPedro Montt, who was so impressed that he began arrangements for Arrau's future education. At eight years old, Arrau was sent on a ten-year-long grant from the Chilean government to study inGermany, travelling with his mother and sister Lucrecia. He was admitted to theStern Conservatory of Berlin where he eventually became a pupil ofMartin Krause, who had studied underFranz Liszt. At the age of eleven, Arrau could play Liszt'sTranscendental Etudes, one of the most difficult works for piano, as well asBrahms'sPaganini Variations. Arrau's first recordings were made on Aeolian Duo-Artplayer piano music rolls. Krause died in his fifth year of teaching Arrau, leaving the 15-year-old student devastated by the loss of his mentor; Arrau did not continue formal study after that point.[4]
In 1935, Arrau gave a celebrated rendition of the entire keyboard works ofJohann Sebastian Bach over 12 recitals. In 1936, Arrau gave a completeMozart keyboard works over 5 recitals, and followed with the completeSchubert andWeber cycles. In 1938, for the first time, Arrau gave the completeBeethoven piano sonatas and concertos in Mexico City. Arrau repeated this several times in his lifetime, including in New York and London. He became one of the leading authorities onBeethoven in the 20th century.[1][4]
In 1937, Arrau marriedmezzo-soprano Ruth Schneider, a German national. They had three children: Carmen (1938–2006), Mario (1940–1988) – who fathered three sons: Shawn (1968), Paycer (1969), and Kip (1970) – and Christopher (1959). In 1941 the Arrau family emigrated from Germany to the United States, eventually settling inDouglaston, Queens, New York, where Arrau spent his remaining years. He became a dual US–Chilean citizen in 1979.[5] On August 17, 1982, the firstCD ofclassical music in history was released by thePolyGram record company;[6] its content consisted of waltzes byChopin performed by Claudio Arrau.[7]
Arrau died on June 9, 1991, at the age of 88, inMürzzuschlag, Austria, from complications of emergency surgery performed on June 8 to correct an intestinal blockage.[8] His remains were interred in his native city ofChillán, Chile.
Arrau was an intellectual and a deeply reflective interpreter. He read widely while travelling, and he learned English, Italian, German, and French in addition to his native Spanish. He became familiar withJung's psychology in his twenties.[9]
Arrau's attitude toward music was very serious. He preached fidelity to the score, but also the use of imagination. Although he often played with slower and more deliberate tempi from his middle age onward, he had a reputation as a fabulousvirtuoso earlier in his career, a reputation supported by recordings he made at this time, such asBalakirev'sIslamey and Liszt'sPaganini études. However, even late in his career, he often tended to play with less restraint in live concerts than in studio recordings.
Arrau was a man of remarkable fortitude, even towards the end of his life he invariably programmed very large, demanding concerts, including works such as Beethoven'sEmperor Concerto and Brahms'Piano Concerto No. 1.[1]
Arrau was a frequent recital performer: from age 40 to 60 he averaged 120 concerts a season, with a very large repertoire. At one time or another, he performed the complete keyboard works ofBach,Mozart,Beethoven andChopin, but also programmed such off-the-beaten-path composers asAlkan andBusoni and illuminated obscure corners of theLiszt repertoire. It has been estimated that Arrau's total repertoire would carry him through 76 recital evenings, not counting the 60-odd works with orchestra which he also knew.[4]
Arrau recorded a considerable part of the piano music ofSchumann, Chopin and Liszt. He edited the complete Beethoven piano sonatas for thePetersUrtext edition and recorded all of them on thePhilips label in 1962–1966. He recorded almost all of them once again in 1984–1990 along with Mozart's complete piano sonatas. He is also famous for his recordings ofSchubert,Brahms andDebussy. At the time of his death at age 88 in the midst of a European concert tour, Arrau was working on a recording of the complete works of Bach forkeyboard, and was also preparing some pieces of Haydn, Mendelssohn, Reger and Busoni, and Boulez's third piano sonata.
On March 26, 2021, Pristine Classical released what it called "a sonic overhaul" of Arrau's "stunningly brilliant" 1942 RCA studio recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, remastered from an issue in 1988, which had "sat in the vaults [of RCA] for 46 years."[10]
Olin Downes, reviewing a recital of Mozart, Schumann, Ravel and Debussy works inThe New York Times, described Claudio Arrau as "a pianist of most exceptional equipment, imagination and unfailing taste."[1]
In 1963, according to various critics, he was a man with "no equal at the present time in point of technical stature and depth of musical imagination," "the No. 1 pianist of our time," a "pianistic titan," a "lion of the piano," or, if you like, a "neo-Liszt from the Tropic of Capricorn".[4]
Daniel Barenboim said that Claudio Arrau had a particular sound with two aspects: first a thickness, full-bodied and orchestral, and second an utterly disembodied timbre, quite spellbinding.[11]
Joachim Kaiser: "Arrau is the noblest, the most conscientious, most respectable pianist of our time."[12]
Sir Colin Davis said: "His sound is amazing, and it is entirely his own... no one else has it exactly that way. His devotion to Liszt is extraordinary. He ennobles that music in a way no one else in the world can."[11]
According to American criticHarold C. Schonberg, Arrau always put "a decidedly romantic piano tone in his interpretations".[13]
Karl Schumann, Germany's leading music critic, said in theSüddeutsche Zeitung on June 2, 1986: "Is it not Claudio Arrau who is the most musical and deeply serious piano phenomenon of our time?".[14]
According toJoseph Horowitz: "His earliest recordings, extending into the forties, are his most mercurial, and are buffed with the glistening tonal refinements mentioned in his early New York reviews. His recorded performances of the following decade or so are more majestically placed; given room to maneuver, he is more likely to linger than to bolt. (...) Then, sometimes around 1960, the recordings document a different change. An emerging undercurrent of raw feeling not only dictates yet slower tempos and grander rubatos, but adds to the dignified architecture of Arrau's sound a steady projection of human frailty. (...) How did this change come about? (...) At the risk of resorting to cut-rate psychology, I am tempted to cite, as well, the event Arrau recalls as 'the greatest shock in my life': his mother's death in 1959. Perhaps mourning opened new emotional pathways. Perhaps the disappearance of a pervasive authority figure freed or emboldened him to make a more vulnerable statement in his art."[15]
John von Rhein wrote in 1991 in theChicago Tribune: "He was among the least flamboyant of pianists, avoiding virtuosic display as rigorously as some pianists seek it out; yet there was never any doubt of his virtuoso technique. He commanded a rich sonority, each chord superbly weighted, the fingerwork a model of finely chiseled clarity, the shape of each phrase deeply considered. Sometimes Mr. Arrau's penchant for slow tempos and emphasis on inner detail could seem fussy, depriving his performances of spontaneity and momentum. At his considerable best, however, he was among the most deeply satisfying interpreters of Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin and particularly Beethoven, whose works held a position in his repertoire comparable to that of his great colleague, pianistRudolf Serkin.[16]
^Claudio Arrau (Piano) full ancestry to Campbells as well as Hapsburgs given here. Accessed via Internet November 22, 2016
^Joseph Horowitz,Arrau on Music and Performance Page 182 "Arrau was raised as a Catholic, but gave it up around the age of fifteen. 'I confessed only once, and thought it was absolutely ridiculous...(I) am not religious in any confessional sense. I think I have some mystical sensations. But I have no image of God as a person.'"
^Horowitz, Joseph; Arrau, Claudio (January 1, 1999)."Arrau on Music and Performance". Courier Corporation. p. 278. RetrievedFebruary 6, 2025 – via Google Books.
^Horowitz, J. (1999),Arrau on music and performance. Courier Dover Publications.
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