Claudio Arrau was born in Chilián, Chile, on February 6, 1903, the youngest child of an eye doctor and amateur pianist who died in a riding accident when Arrau was a year old. He read music before he could read words, and gave his first piano recital in Santiago at age five. Two years later, the child prodigy was sent on a government grant to Stern’s Conservatory in Berlin, Germany, where he studied with Martin Krause, a pupil of Liszt.
Arrau made his formal debut in Berlin at age 11, and had performed under the batons of Karl Muck, Arthur Nikisch, Willem Mengelberg, and Wilhelm FURTWäNGLER by age 15. After Krause’s death in the massive European influenza epidemic of 1918, Arrau underwent a crisis of emotional and financial insecurity. Although he won consecutive Liszt Prizes in 1919 and 1920 (the first awarded in 45 years), as well as the Ibach Prize, and the Gustav Holländer Medal, a disappointing American tour in 1923–24 prompted sessions with the Jungian psychoanalyst, Dr. Hubert Abrahamsohn. With his confidence restored, Arrau won first prize in the International Geneva Concours for Pianists in 1927. The jury included Alfred Cortot and Artur RUBINSTEIN.
From 1926 to 1940, Arrau taught at Stern’s Conservatory. In 1935, he was the first pianist ever to play the complete keyboard works of J. S. Bach, which he did in 12 recitals. In subsequent seasons, he gave performance cycles of all of the Beethoven Sonatas, the Mozart Sonatas, as well as Schubert and Weber. In 1941, Arrau returned to the United States to give a career-making Carnegie Hall recital. This prompted a move to Douglaston in Queens, New York, where he lived until 1990. Arrau performed Beethoven’s sonatas and concertos numerous times over several decades, including a historic BBC broadcast in 1952. In 1978, Arrau edited an Urtext Edition of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas for the publishing house of Peters in Frankfurt, Germany, the first by a Beethoven interpreter since Artur SCHNABEL’S in 1935.
In May 1984, Arrau returned to Santiago, Chile, after a self-imposed boycott that had lasted 17 years (against the regimes of Salvador Allende Gossens and, later, General Augusto Pinochet), to play “for a whole new generation which has never heard me.” He was given a reception unequaled in its enthusiasm since the pianist and composer Ignacy Paderewski returned triumphantly to Poland after World War I. People stood cheering at the airport and in line at the box office for as long as 13 hours to buy tickets, and his concerts were seen and heard on television by 80 percent of the nation.
Arrau was a celebrated interpreter of Beethoven, but he also excelled with the works of Brahms, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, and Debussy. He was recognised for intellectual, probing interpretations executed with a powerful technical command. Fullness of sonority and unhurried tempi enhanced his thorough shaping of each phrase and nuance of the music; his playing conveyed exceptional expressive breadth and emotional power. An active educator, Arrau’s best-known students are Philip Lorenz and Garrick Ohlsson.
Among Arrau’s many honours were the Theresa Carreno Medal from Venezuela; the International UNESCO Music Prize; the National Arts Prize from Chile; the Aztec Eagle from Mexico; a Commendatore from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome; the Legion of Honour from France; and the Berlin Philharmonic’s highest honour, the Hans von Bülow Medal. Claudio Arrau died on June 8, 1991, in Murzzuschlag, Austria.
Hao Huang and Rachel Vetter Huang
SEE ALSO:
LATE ROMANTICISM; ORCHESTRAL MUSIC.
FURTHER READING
Horowitz, Joseph. Conversations with Arrau (London: Collins, 1982).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Claudio Arrau: An 80th Birthday Tribute;
Beethoven: Piano Concertos; Piano Sonatas;
Chopin: Ballades;
Debussy: Preludes.