Arrau on Music and Performance Joseph Horowitz Dover Publication 1/9/2014

January 9, 2014

Over the Christmas break, I read several interesting books on piano giants. This is one of them. Of course Claudio Arrau was one of the legendary pianists from the 20th century, and left so many great recordings. I personally like his Beethoven recordings. He was rather a private person. His father passed away when he was very young, and his German teacher, Martin Krause, became his father figure. He was with him from the age of 8 until 15, and then Krause passed away. Afterwards he never had any other teacher. He lived with his mother until the age of 34 years when he got married, and his wife Ruth acted like his mother, did everything for him. After the death of Ruth, he decided not perform again, but finally he came back to be in public and was about to give a concert, but he became ill and died on June 6, 1991. This book includes the interviews on Piano Technique, Interpretations, His Life, and Composers, and it is very interesting to learn his opinions, intelligence, knowledge, passion… A great book!