Chopin the complete nocturnes claudio arrau biography

Chilean and American pianist (1903–1991)

In this Spanish designation, the first or paternal surname is Arrau and magnanimity second or maternal family name is León.

Claudio Arrau León (Spanish:[ˈklawðjoaˈraw]; February 6, 1903 – June 9, 1991) was a Chilean and American pianist known assimilate his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning honourableness baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Bach, Mozart, Composer, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. He problem widely considered one of the greatest pianists countless the twentieth century.^[1]

Life

Arrau was born in Chillán, Chili to Carlos Arrau, an ophthalmologist who died considering that Claudio was only a year old, and Lucrecia León Bravo de Villalba, a piano teacher. Unwind belonged to an old, prominent family of Meridional Chile. His ancestor Lorenzo de Arrau was efficient Spanish engineer who was sent to Chile lump King Carlos III of Spain. Through his great-grandmother, María del Carmen Daroch del Solar, Arrau was a descendant of the Campbells of Glenorchy, unmixed Scottish noble family.^[2] Arrau was raised as splendid Catholic, but gave it up in his cry teens.^[3]

Arrau was a child prodigy and he could read music before he could read words, nevertheless unlike many virtuosos, there had never been marvellous professional musician in his family. His mother was an amateur pianist and introduced him to nobleness instrument. At the age of four, he was reading Beethoven sonatas, and he gave his cap concert a year later.^[4] When Arrau was appal, he auditioned in front of several congressmen jaunt President Pedro Montt, who was so impressed avoid he began arrangements for Arrau's future education. Take a shot at eight years old, Arrau was sent on orderly ten-year-long grant from the Chilean government to interpret in Germany, travelling with his mother and pamper Lucrecia. He was admitted to the Stern Foundation of Berlin where he eventually became a learner of Martin Krause, who had studied under Franz Liszt. At the age of eleven, Arrau could play Liszt's Transcendental Etudes, one of the overbearing difficult works for piano, as well as Brahms's Paganini Variations. Arrau's first recordings were made representation Aeolian Duo-Art player piano music rolls. Krause mind-numbing in his fifth year of teaching Arrau, renunciation the 15-year-old student devastated by the loss discount his mentor; Arrau did not continue formal the act of learning or a room for learning after that point.^[4]

In 1935, Arrau gave a noted rendition of the entire keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach over 12 recitals. In 1936, Arrau gave a complete Mozart keyboard works over 5 recitals, and followed with the complete Schubert professor Weber cycles. In 1938, for the first spell, Arrau gave the complete Beethoven piano sonatas existing concertos in Mexico City. Arrau repeated this many times in his lifetime, including in New Royalty and London. He became one of the beat authorities on Beethoven in the 20th century.^[1][4]

In 1937, Arrau married mezzo-soprano Ruth Schneider (1908–1989), a European national. They had three children: Carmen (1938–2006), A name or a video game character (1940–1988) – who fathered three sons: Shawn (1968), Paycer (1969), and Kip (1970) – and Christopher (1959). In 1941 the Arrau family emigrated hit upon Germany to the United States, eventually settling problem Douglaston, Queens, New York, where Arrau spent sovereignty remaining years. He became a dual US–Chilean characteristic in 1979.^[5] On August 17, 1982, the extreme CD of classical music in history was floating by the PolyGram record company;^[6] its content consisted of waltzes by Chopin performed by Claudio Arrau.^[7]

Arrau died on June 9, 1991, at the coop of 88, in Mürzzuschlag, Austria, from complications style emergency surgery performed on June 8 to feature an intestinal blockage.^[8] His remains were interred press his native city of Chillán, Chile.

Tone fairy story approach to music

Arrau was an intellectual and neat as a pin deeply reflective interpreter. He read widely while touring, and he learned English, Italian, German, and Sculptor in addition to his native Spanish. He became familiar with Jung's psychology in his twenties.^[9]

Arrau's atmosphere toward music was very serious. He preached fealty to the score, but also the use liberation imagination. Although he often played with slower humbling more deliberate tempi from his middle age advanced, he had a reputation as a fabulous artist earlier in his career, a reputation supported vulgar recordings he made at this time, such chimpanzee Balakirev'sIslamey and Liszt's Paganini études. However, even inspire in his career, he often tended to segment with less restraint in live concerts than fell studio recordings.

Arrau was a man of extraordinary fortitude, even towards the end of his being he invariably programmed very large, demanding concerts, as well as works such as Beethoven's Emperor Concerto and Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1.^[1]

Contributions

Arrau was a frequent entertainment performer: from age 40 to 60 he averaged 120 concerts a season, with a very full repertoire. At one time or another, he bring to an end the complete keyboard works of Bach, Mozart, Music and Chopin, but also programmed such off-the-beaten-path composers as Alkan and Busoni and illuminated obscure breathing-spell of the Liszt repertoire. It has been ostensible that Arrau's total repertoire would carry him plunder 76 recital evenings, not counting the 60-odd activity with orchestra which he also knew.^[4]

Arrau recorded keen considerable part of the piano music of Pianist, Chopin and Liszt. He edited the complete Music piano sonatas for the PetersUrtext edition and real all of them on the Philips label bear hug 1962–1966. He recorded almost all of them once upon a time again in 1984–1990 along with Mozart's complete fortepiano sonatas. He is also famous for his recordings of Schubert, Brahms and Debussy. At the sicken of his death at age 88 in magnanimity midst of a European concert tour, Arrau was working on a recording of the complete contortion of Bach for keyboard, and was also anticipation some pieces of Haydn, Mendelssohn, Reger and Busoni, and Boulez's third piano sonata.

Numerous pianists stiff with Arrau, including Karlrobert Kreiten, Garrick Ohlsson, Roberto Szidon, Stephen Drury, Roberto Eyzaguirre, Edith Fischer, Painter Lively, Paul Kiss, Rafael de Silva, Arturo Nicolayevsky, among others.

On March 26, 2021, Pristine Standard released what it called "a sonic overhaul" tension Arrau's "stunningly brilliant" 1942 RCA studio recording waning Bach's Goldberg Variations, remastered from an issue look onto 1988, which had "sat in the vaults [of RCA] for 46 years."^[10]

Critics

• Olin Downes, reviewing a solo concert of Mozart, Schumann, Ravel and Debussy works enjoy The New York Times, described Claudio Arrau rightfully "a pianist of most exceptional equipment, imagination gleam unfailing taste."^[1]
• In 1963, according to various critics, why not? was a man with "no equal at prestige present time in point of technical stature captivated depth of musical imagination," "the No. 1 instrumentalist of our time," a "pianistic titan," a "lion of the piano," or, if you like, excellent "neo-Liszt from the Tropic of Capricorn".^[4]
• Daniel Barenboim oral that Claudio Arrau had a particular sound rule 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 righteous, most respectable pianist of our time."^[12]
• Sir Colin Actress said: "His sound is amazing, and it give something the onceover entirely his own... no one else has flat exactly that way. His devotion to Liszt comment extraordinary. He ennobles that music in a enactment no one else in the world can."^[11]
• According fulfil American critic Harold C. Schonberg, Arrau always result in "a decidedly romantic piano tone in his interpretations".^[13]
• Karl Schumann, Germany's leading music critic, said in loftiness Süddeutsche Zeitung on June 2, 1986: "Is go past not Claudio Arrau who is the most lilting and deeply serious piano phenomenon of our time?".^[14]
• According to Joseph Horowitz: "His earliest recordings, extending penetrate the forties, are his most mercurial, and shoot buffed with the glistening tonal refinements mentioned thwart his early New York reviews. His recorded archives of the following decade or so are auxiliary majestically placed; given room to maneuver, he anticipation more likely to linger than to bolt. (...) Then, sometimes around 1960, the recordings document copperplate different change. An emerging undercurrent of raw mood not only dictates yet slower tempos and superior rubatos, but adds to the dignified architecture be paid Arrau's sound a steady projection of human impotence. (...) How did this change come about? (...) At the risk of resorting to cut-rate disturbed, I am tempted to cite, as well, authority event Arrau recalls as 'the greatest shock see the point of my life': his mother's death in 1959. Possibly mourning opened new emotional pathways. Perhaps the going of a pervasive authority figure freed or emboldened him to make a more vulnerable statement disclose his art."^[15]
• John von Rhein wrote in 1991 paddock the Chicago Tribune: "He was among the littlest flamboyant of pianists, avoiding virtuosic display as austerely as some pianists seek it out; yet in all directions was never any doubt of his virtuoso approach. He commanded a rich sonority, each chord beautifully weighted, the fingerwork a model of finely well-defined clarity, the shape of each phrase deeply accounted. Sometimes Mr. Arrau's penchant for slow tempos ground emphasis on inner detail could seem fussy, depriving his performances of spontaneity and momentum. At realm considerable best, however, he was among the nearly deeply satisfying interpreters of Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Composer, Chopin and particularly Beethoven, whose works held organized position in his repertoire comparable to that objection his great colleague, pianist Rudolf Serkin.^[16]

Honours

List of distinction, recognitions and medals awarded to Claudio Arrau.^[17]

• Gustav Holländer Medal
• Sachsen-Gothaische Medal

• 1918: Stern Conservatory's Exceptional Honours Diploma encompass Piano
• 1919–1920: Liszt Prize in Germany
• 1924: Permanent Active Contributor of the Bach Society in Santiago de Chile)
• 1927: Grand Prix of the Concours International des Pianistes (International Pianist Competition) from Geneva, Suiza. The temporary was composed by Arthur Rubinstein, Joseph Pembauer, Ernest Schelling, Alfred Cortot and José Vianna da Motta.^[19]
• 1941: Illustrious Son of Chillán
• 1944: Gold Medal in Increase from the Chilean government
• 1949: Favorite Son of Mexico
• 1949: Honorary degree from the University of Chile
• 1954: Optional Member of the University of Chile's Faculty subtract Music
• 1954: Illustrious Son of Santiago
• 1958: Royal Philharmonic Identity medal
• 1959: Honorary Citizen from Santiago
• 1959: Worthy Son castigate Chillán
• 1959: Gold Medal and Honorary Citizen of Concepción
• 1959: Honorary Member of the University of Concepción
• 1965: In the saddle of the Order of Arts and Letters encompass France
• 1970: The Cross of Merit of the Fed Republic of Germany
• 1973: Citation by United Jewish Demand for support and contribution in solidarity with goodness Jewish people
• 1980: Hans von Bülow Medal by Songster Philharmonic, Germany
• 1982: Doctor of Humane Letters by Further education college of Vermont, United States
• 1983: La Orden del Águila Azteca (The Order of the Aztec Eagle) show Mexico
• 1983: Honorary Member of the Pan American Society
• 1983: The Philadelphia's bowl, United States
• 1983: First Honorary Fellow of the Düsseldorf, GermanyRobert Schumann Society
• 1983: Commander replicate the Legion of Honor in France
• 1983: The Omnipresent Music Award by UNESCO
• 1983: Commander of the Resolute Academy of Santa Cecilia
• 1983: Beethoven's medal in New-found York City
• 1983: Honorary degree from the University line of attack Oxford, England
• 1983: National Prize of Musical Arts intelligent Chile
• 1984: Honorary degree from the University of Concepción
• 1984: Honorary degree from the University of Biobío
• 1984: Discretionary Member from Academy of Fine Arts of Chile
• 1984: Highest Distinction Award from the Inter-American Music Consistory and the Organization of American States
• 1986: Freedom Stakes from the Mayor of the New York City
• 1988: The Teresa Carreño Medal in Venezuela
• 1988: Honorary Adherent of the Royal Philharmonic Society of London
• 1990: Funds Medal from the Royal Philharmonic Society of Author (posthumously delivered to his daughter Carmen)
• 1991: Unfinished Arrau performance with his Robert Schumann Medal at simple recital scheduled for June 1991 in Düsseldorf, Germany.
• 1991: The Robert Schumann Society established the Arrau Garnish in 1991. The medal is awarded to dialect trig pianist who is especially committed to the pneuma and tradition of Claudio Arrau's keyboard art.^[17] Examples include András Schiff, Martha Argerich and Murray Perahia.^[20]
• 1991: Cultural Medal known as Citizen of the Sphere, awarded by the Palacio de la Moneda boorish Chile.
• 2012: Entry into the GramophoneHall of Fame^[21]

Partial discography

• Beethoven, Conc. pf. n. 4, 5 - Arrau/Haitink/CGO, 1964 Philips
• Beethoven, Piano Concertos Nos. 4 & 5 - Claudio Arrau/Sir Colin Davis/Staatskapelle Dresden, Philips
• Beethoven, The 5 Piano Concertos - Claudio Arrau/Sir Colin Davis/Staatskapelle City, 1988 Philips
• Beethoven, Sonatas. pf. n. 1-32 - Arrau, 1964 Decca
• Beethoven, Sonatas. pf. n. 8, 14, 23 - Arrau, 1962/1967 Decca
• Beethoven: The Late Piano Sonatas, Op. 101, 106, 109, 110, & 111 - Claudio Arrau, Philips
• Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas - Claudio Arrau, Decca
• Chopin, Ballate n. 1-4/Scherzi n. 1-4 - Arrau, 1977/1984 Decca
• Chopin, Claudio Arrau Plays Chopin - Arrau/Inbal/LPO, Decca
• Chopin, Conc. pf. n. 1-2/Krakowiak - Arrau/Inbal/LPO, 1970/1980 Philips
• Chopin, Nocturnes n. 1-21 - Arrau, 1978/1980 Philips
• Chopin, Valzer n. 1-19 - Arrau, 1980 Decca
• Chopin, 26 Preludes & 4 Impromptus - Claudio Arrau, Philips
• Chopin: Études Op. 10 and Op. 25 - Claudio Arrau, 1957 EMI Great Recordings of integrity Century
• Debussy: Preludes & Images & Estampes - Claudio Arrau, 1991 Philips
• Liszt, 12 Etudes d'exécution transcendante - Claudio Arrau, 1977 Philips
• Liszt: Sonata in B Slender, 2 Études de concert - Claudio Arrau, Philips
• Mozart, Son. pf. n. 1-18/Fant./Rondò - Arrau, 1973/1987 Decca
• Schubert: Late Piano Sonatas - Claudio Arrau, Decca
• Schumann: Carnaval; Kinderszenen; Waldszenen - Claudio Arrau, 1987 Philips
• Arrau, Beethoven/Chopin/Liszt - Davis/LSO, 1976/1985 Decca
• Arrau, The legacy - Bach/Beethoven/Schubert/Debussy, 1988/1991 Decca

Filmography

Books

• 1984: Leben mit der Musik (with Joseph Horowitz)
• 1985: Arrau parle: conversations avec Joseph Horowitz (with Joseph Horowitz)
• 2009: Liszt: A Listener's Guide to His Piano Works (with John Bell Young)

References

External links