Claudio Arrau
"In the last three decades of his nearly eighty-eight years, a mystique about his interpretive abilities developed. Seen as a figure of near-biblical import to many, particularly in the late sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert, Arrau’s Brahms, Schumann, and Liszt were also ranked at the heights, particularly through nearly sixty well-marketed studio recordings for Philips."
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Frank Cooper
‘This boy shall be my masterwork!’
Claudio Arrau León (6 February, 1903 – 9 June, 1991) was a pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. He died in Mürzzuschlag, Austria.
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He was born in Chillán, Chile (the capital city of the Ñuble region of Chile) to Carlos Arrau, an ophthalmologist who died when Claudio was only a year old, and Lucrecia León Bravo de Villalba, a piano teacher. He belonged to an old, prominent family of Southern Chile. His ancestor Lorenzo de Arrau, a Spanish engineer, was sent to Chile by King Carlos III of Spain. Through his great-grandmother, María del Carmen Daroch del Solar, Arrau was a descendant of the Campbells of Glenorchy, a Scottish noble family. Arrau was raised as a Catholic, but gave it up in his late teens.
At age 8, Arrau was sent on a ten-year-long grant from the Chilean government to study in Germany. He was admitted to the Stern Conservatory of Berlin where he eventually became a pupil of Martin Krause, who had studied under Franz Liszt. At the age of 11 Arrau could play Liszt's Transcendental Etudes, one of the most difficult works for piano, as well as Brahms's Paganini Variations.
Child prodigy
In 1909-10, the young Claudio Arrau undertook private tutoring with the distinguished Italian music teacher Bindo Paoli from the Music Conservatory in Santiago. In 1910 he gave a piano recital at La Moneda Presidential Palace in Santiago on 4 June, at the age of 7, before an audience including President Pedro Montt and a number of ministers, diplomats, and artists. The recital included works by Bach, Grieg, Mozart, and Carl Reinecke.
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In February of the same year, 1910, he received a scholarship from the Chilean Parliament to undertake studies in Santiago with Professor Paoli. In November, the privilege was extended to pursuing studies in Berlin, at the time held as the artistic capital of the world. (The scholarship was subsequently debated and renewed in Parliament, until discontinued in 1921.)
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Arrau gave his very first piano recital at the still-under-construction Municipal Theatre of Chillán on Saturday 19, September 1908 at 9:30 pm, as a 5-year-old child prodigy using pedal extensions specially made for him. The performance seems to have included: one of Beethoven's sets of Variations (on Nel cor più non mi sento), a Mozart Sonata [K545?], Schumann's Kinderszenen, and L. Streabbog's Louis XIII Air Op.115 (as reported in an article in El Comercio newspaper of Chillán, 22 September 1908).
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His teacher in Santiago for two years (1908/9) was Bindo Paoli. A native of Trieste, but educated in Germany, Paoli had settled at Santiago in 1893.
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In 1909 his mother, Doña Lucrecia León Bravo-de-Villalba (1859-1959), decided to move temporarily to the capital Santiago, and settled at Calle Dieciocho. After listening to the young boy playing at his presidential residence, the then President of Chile, Mr Pedro Montt, entertained the idea of Claudio Arrau studying overseas.
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Influential Chilean musician Enrique Soro Barriga was reported to have stated after a recital that he had just heard a genius playing; he wrote an article entitled ‘The Chilean Mozart’.
[El Comercio, Chillán, 16 October 1909; Selecta Santiago, Nov. 1909 (#8, pp.275-276)]​​
Farewell recital
​​Claudio’s farewell recital in Chillán was on 7 May 1911; he was aged 8.
The programme comprised:
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Chopin: Étude Op. 10/3 in E major
Schumann: Andante and Variations (for two pianos)
Mozart: Fantasie in D minor
Moszkowski: Danse Espagnole (for four hands)
Chopin: Rondo (for two pianos)
Beethoven: Variations on a Theme
Raff, Joachim: Tarantelle (for four hands)
Duvernoy, J.B.: Feu roulant Op.256 (for two pianos)
In May 1911, he departed for Germany, from the port of Valparaíso, on board the German cargo-and-passenger ship Titania, accompanied by his mother (aged 55) and siblings Carlos (18) and Lucrecia (14), for a 4-week journey across the Atlantic. At age 8, on his way to Germany, he gave his first piano recital in Buenos Aires, before an astonished audience, especially invited to the Chilean Embassy for the occasion, which included a music critic for La Nación newspaper.
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During 1911-12, he was a short-term pupil of Waldemar Lütschg and, subsequently, of Paul Schramm in Berlin. But in 1913, introduced by Chilean pianist Rosita Renard, who was already making a promising career in Europe, Arrau became a pupil of the legendary Martin Krause (Leipzig 1853 - Berlin 1918) - himself a former pupil of Franz/Ferenc Liszt - at the Julius Stern Conservatory of Berlin. After listening to the child playing, Krause is reported to have said: ‘This boy shall be my masterwork!’
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At the age of 11 (1913), he began studying Franz Liszt's 12 Études d'exécution transcendante at the under Krause: Mazeppa, Feux follets, Eroica.
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.
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​Rosita Renard had held young Claudio’s hand as she walked him to his first lesson with the man who would become a father figure to him. When Renard finished her four years of tutelage, Krause declared that 'there is no doubt she will conquer the world as an artist,' adding that 'her spiritual interpretation, her sound, can only be compared with the great maestro Emil von Sauer.' But while Arrau had a long career, leaving behind dozens of hours of recordings made over a six-decade period, Renard’s career and legacy were not quite as secure, despite her capabilities.
After an immensely successful Carnegie Hall recital in January 1949, Renard returned to Chile and soon began displaying symptoms that caused by a strain of sleeping sickness being treated by Albert Schweitzer in Africa. She could not be cured and died on 24 May, 1949 at the age of 55.
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See further a PDF booklet (in Spanish) produced in January 2009 by the Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile: Claudio Arrau León y el Congreso Nacional de Chile: 1908-1921. Online link
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Click on the button to be taken to the extensive Arrau House website for all things Arrau.
