Claudio Arrau Essentials

Chilean-born, German-trained and New York-based, Claudio Arrau brought seriousness and intellectual heft to the music he played. His Beethoven and Brahms were hewn from granite with few adornments to soften their frowning gaze. In Chopin, the music never danced with the lightness of foot of a Rubinstein, but there was a single-minded rightness about his playing that demanded attention. He could draw magical colours from the piano in Debussy: not for nothing did he love the opera, and he brought a singer's feel for nuance and tonal variation to everything he played.