Biography
Claudio Arrau León (February 6, 1903 – June 9, 1991) was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning from the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.
Arrau was born in Chillán, Chile, the son of ophthamologist, Carlos Arrau, 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-Basque 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 a child prodigy, giving his first concert at age five. At age seven he was sent on a Chilean government grant to study in Germany, at the Stern conservatory of Berlin where he was a pupil of Martin Krause, who had studied under Franz Liszt. At the age of 11 he could play Liszt's Transcendental Etudes, considered to be one of the most difficult sets of works ever written for the piano, and also Brahms's Paganini Variations. Arrau's first recordings were on Aeolian Duo-Art player piano music rolls.
In 1937, Arrau married German Jewish mezzo-soprano Ruth Schneider, and they had three children: Carmen (1938-2006), Mario (1940-1988) and Christopher (1959). The Arraus spent summers at their residence in Andover, Vermont.
Claudio Arrau spent his last days residing in Munich, Germany.
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