Claude Frank

Born Claus Johannes Frank in Nürnberg, Germany.

Obituary published by WQXR:

Claude Frank, a pianist known for his elegant, patrician renditions of the Austro-German repertory, died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 89 and had been suffering from dementia. His death was confirmed by the Curtis Institute of Music, where he was a professor of piano.

A German-born refugee of Nazism, Frank took up the mantle of Beethoven performance passed on by his famous teacher, the pianist Artur Schnabel. Never a showman, and essentially conservative in his tastes, Frank was nonetheless revered for the insights and sense of taste he brought to Beethoven's towering piano sonatas. RCA released his set of all 32 for the Beethoven bicentennial in 1970, to widespread raves.

Frank was a piano faculty member at Curtis since 1988 and taught at the Yale School of Music since 1973. He lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in an extended musical family; he occasionally gave duo recitals with his wife, the late pianist Lilian Kallir, and, in his later years, with his daughter, the violinist Pamela Frank.

Born in Nuremberg, Germany – his father was a lawyer, his mother a semi-professional singer – Frank began piano lessons at the age of 6. At 12, he studied in Paris with a pupil of Schnabel and two years later fled the German occupation, stopping in Spain and Portugal before arriving in New York in 1941.

Frank studied piano—interrupted by a term of military service—with Artur Schnabel in New York, and had his recital debut at Town Hall in 1947. He performed with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1948 and had his New York Philharmonic debut under conductor Leonard Bernstein in 1959. He later appeared with many of the world's major orchestras, including all of the so-called “big five” (Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Cleveland) as well as the Berlin Philharmonic and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam.

While by the mid 1970s Frank was playing 70 concerts a year on multiple continents, by the ‘80s he pulled back from the concerto circuit to focus on private teaching, master classes and chamber music. He often collaborated with colleagues from the annual Marlboro Festival in Vermont, where he was a regular guest almost since its start in the early 1950s (it was in Marlboro where he married Kallir in 1959). He also began playing with Pamela Frank, and made a complete recording of the Beethoven piano and violin sonatas for MusicMaster.

In 2002, Frank’s cycle of Beethoven sonatas was re-released in a 10-CD set. “In this repertory the competition is, of course, plentiful,” wrote Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein in a review. “But he holds his own, even against such titans as Arrau and Rubinstein -- his quiet authority wears well over the long haul.”

Frank’s wife, Kallir, died in 2004. He is survived by Pamela Frank; his niece, Catherine Frank; and two nephews, Thomas Frank and Daniel Frank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Frank Claude Frank is a German-born, American Jewish pianist whose career has included appearances with highly reputed orchestras, at major festivals, and in major recital halls around the world. Born December 24, 1925 in Nuremberg, Germany, Frank studied at the Paris Conservatoire; worked with Artur Schnabel in New York, for whom he first played in Europe;[1] studied with Schnabel's last and favourite pupil, Maria Curcio;[2] and studied composition and conducting at Columbia University. At Tanglewood he studied with Serge Koussevitzky.[3] He has performed worldwide as a soloist with distinguished orchestras, touring Asia, Australia, Europe, Israel and South America, and in chamber music concerts. A milestone in his career was RCA's release of his recordings of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas and his worldwide performances of the cycle.[4]

He has appeared in joint concerts with his wife, pianist Lilian Kallir (1931–2004),[5] and, in recent years, with his daughter, the renowned violinist Pamela Frank (born 1967). Frank serves on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and presents master classes at Yale University, Duke University, the University of Kansas, and the North Carolina School of the Arts among many others. He has been on the piano faculty of the Yale School of Music since 1973.

Claude Frank has written his memoirs with co-author Hawley Roddick: The Music That Saved My Life: From Hitler's Germany to the World's Concert Stages. Under submission for publication by their literary agent,[6] it is a story rich in details about European and musical history, tracing Frank's career from days as a protégée of Artur Schnabel to those as a teacher of Richard Goode. More recently, he performed alongside nine other legendary pianists at “The Olympic Centenary Piano Extravaganza of China” in Beijing, China.[7]