Claudio Arrau was born in Chillan Chile, on February 6, 1903 and like
most of history's great pianists, was a child prodigy. His mother was
an amateur pianist and his father an eye doctor, who died in a riding
accident when Arrau was one-year old. In order to support herself and
her three young children, Lucretia Leon de Arrau, an indomitable woman,
began to give piano lessons. Claudio, her youngest, was allowed to sit
in so she could keep an eye on him and the result was that he could
read notes before he could read words. By five, the boy gave recitals
both in Chillan and in Santiago and by seven, he and his entire family,
including an aunt, were on their way to Berlin (the musical Mecca of
that time) where the young piano genius was to study on a Government
grant (by an act of the Chilean Congress) over the next ten years. In
Berlin, after blundering around for two years with wrong teachers, Arrau,
at ten, finally found the teacher he needed. He was Martin Krause, a
pupil of Liszt's, a famous music critic and the friend of all the great
musicians of his time. Between the young boy and the grand pedagogue,
it was love at first sight. For Arrau, Krause became the father he never
had and to Krause, Arrau was the pupil he had been searching for. "He
will be my masterwork," said Krause, who also taught Edwin Fischer.
In Berlin, the young boy heard all the great pianists of the day; Terese
Carreno, d'Albert and later, Busoni, and they all became his idols,
especially Carreno and Busoni. At 15, when Krause died from the great
flu epidemic of1918, Arrau was 1eft without a teacher. But so much had
been imparted to him that he preferred to go on by himself, winning
the famed Liszt Prize twice in a row at ages 16 and 17.
Thus, when Arrau, at 20, arrived for his Carnegie Hall debut on October
20, 1923, he was already a seasoned artist who had played throughout
Europe since the age of 11, had appeared with Nikisch in Leipzig at
12, and at 17, had made smash debuts both in London (at the Royal Albert
Hall) and in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic under Karl Muck.
Arrau had come to the United States for a promised tour of 30 dates
and found himself with only five (in those days things like that happened
even to veterans like Carreno and Busoni): three concerts in New York
and appearances with the Boston and Chicago Symphonies. Boston under
Monteux and Chicago under Stock were splendid. Carnegie Hall, with the
house mostly empty, was far less so. Arrau, thinking himself a failure,
returned home to Berlin no richer than he had come, and that, he says
today, was probably the best thing that could have happened to him at
the time, artistically-wise.
Berlin, after World War I, was boiling over with new ideas. The time
of the salon pianists was about over, musicology was a new discipline
and great Beethoven interpreters were coming to the fore who were to
transform the art of piano playing in our time. The spirit of Busoni,
d'Albert and Ansorge were still everywhere, Schnabel and Edwin Fischer
were on the rise, and both freedom of expression and fidelity to the
text were the order of the day.
Without giving up Liszt, Arrau gravitated to Beethoven. Textual fidelity
and freedom of expression became his two guiding principles. In starving
Germany, he managed to keep himself and his family alive, and by the
time he won the famed International Geneva Prize in 1927, when he was
24 (the judges were Cortot, de Motta and Arthur Rubinstein), the great
composers - Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert - had become his life.
By the time Arrau was 32, he had not only played the 32 Beethoven Sonatas
and all the Schubert and Mozart Sonatas as well as Weber in cycles of
concerts, but also, all of the keyboard works of Bach in a series of
12 recitals which made him a legend in Berlin.
During that time, he was also playing Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt,
Debussy, Albeniz, Ravel and Schoenberg, leading the chief music critic
of the London Times, William Mann to write years later after World War
II, "There are pianists who rank as outstanding in Bach, Mozart,
Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt. Arrau is the only pianist alive who, at
any rate while he is playing, can convince people that he is the outstanding
interpreter of all these composers and a good many others too."
By the time Arrau returned to play at Carnegie Hall again, in February
1941, he felt ready and mature, and this time, his name had preceded
him and the house was packed. The New York Times, along with every other
paper including Time Magazine, gave him rave reviews. The following
season he played over 100 concerts across the United States and Canada
and had the additional distinction of being invited back to play twice
in that same season with both the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras.
In 1958 his world tour included the Soviet Union, Japan, Australia
and New Zealand, as well as Europe, Israel, the United States, Canada,
Mexico and South America - a tour which he repeated for the most part
in 1974-75. In fact, with the exception of Peking, there is probably
not an important city, large or small, anywhere in the world where Arrau
has not been heard. During the 1981-82 season, in addition to the United
States, Canada, Europe and Brazil, he also made his fifth return to
Japan, capping it with a sixth triumphant return to Japan and South
Korea in May 1987.
During 1982-83, the whole world of music joined in celebrating the
Maestro's 80th birthday. His Avery Fisher Hall recital at Lincoln Center
in February was the official birthday celebration and was televised.
There were also TV documentaries both in London and Germany. He also
picked up a new batch of birthday honors and prizes, including the International
UNESCO Music Prize for 1983, the National Arts Prize from Chile, the
Aztec Eagle from Mexico, a Commandatore from the Accademia di Santa
Cecilia in Rome and a Commandeur de la Legion de Honneur, France's highest
decoration.
As part of the continuing 80th birthday celebrations, Arrau returned
to his native Chile in May 1984 as a symbol of peace after an absence
of 17 years, to play as he said, "For a whole new generation which
has never heard me," and was given a reception probably without
equal since the time of Paderewski's return to Poland after World War
I and Liszt's return to Hungary under the Austrians in 1839. As the
New York Times reported in a long story which was given an alert on
the front page, Arrau dominated the local newspapers for weeks and his
concerts in Santiago (six in eleven days) were seen and heard on TV
by 80% of the nation.
His 85th birthday, on February 6, 1988, was another occasion for world
celebration, winding up with a grand "Emperor" Concerto in
London, under the direction of Sir Colin Davis, which was televised
and will be brought out on video disc together with the Beethoven Concerto
No. 4 under Riccardo Muti. Since 1941, Arrau and his late wife Ruth,
made Douglaston, New York, their home base and also a summer home in
Vermont, where he loves to retreat for rest and quiet, sometimes with
his children and grandchildren and always with his beloved cats and
dogs. Arrau became an American citizen in February 1979, but retains
dual passports.
In 1978, Arrau completed a new Urtext Edition of the Beethoven Piano
Sonatas for the famous music publishing house of Peters in Frankfurt.
A performing edition, the first by a famous Beethoven interpreter since
Schnabel's in 1935, it includes all the Arrau fingerings, as well as
tempi by Beethoven (where available), Czerny and Arrau and suggestions
for dynamics, pedalings and performance practice.
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