Claudio Arrau

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.

Quotes about Arrau

 * I heard his Emperor and it was terrible. He plays so slow, ugh. Also the Waldstein. So slow.
 * Vladimir Horowitz, quoted in Harold C. Schonberg, Horowitz: his life and music


 * Serkin is the exponent of the Austro-German tradition. Arrau, also German-trained, is more eclectic—a pianist who seems to play everything from Bach to Prokofieff (he has looked at atonal and serial music as avant-garde as Boulez but has not felt impelled to play it in public).
 * Harold Schonberg, The Great Pianists (revised ed., 1987), p. 451


 * Arrau is a hard pianist to categorize. Possessing a stupendous technique, he nevertheless has never used it for display purposes. He is a literalist, in that he closely examines all the texts of the music he plays and scrupulously adheres to the printed note once he has made up his mind about the version he will use. Yet he avoids the curse of literalism by putting a strong mind and a decidedly romantic piano sound into his interpretations. Perhaps he can best be described as an eclectic of the German school.
 * Harold Schonberg, The Great Pianists (revised ed., 1987), pp. 453-454