3 months agoLili Kraus, age 57, performing Schubert’s Impromptu No. 2 in E-flat major (Op. 90 - D. 899) in 1960.
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Kraus was born in Budapest, 1903 and began learning the piano at the age of six. She initially practiced on an old, dilapidated piano that her parents saved the funds to buy, later recalling that its sound was like a tin can hitting a radiator and that its keys were so hard to depress that they required considerable muscular effort to play - a characteristic, her highly articulated finger strength, that distinguished her playing for the rest of her life. At the age of eight, she auditioned and was accepted into the Franz Liszt Academy of Music (in Budapest), despite the minimum age of entry being 14, and having not learned any of the required pieces to audition. At the conservatory, Kraus studied with Zoltán Kodály, Béla Bartók and practiced around 2-3 hours a day, sessions that were not particularly voluntary, as her mother would sometimes drag Lili to the piano by her hair and hit her hands with a ruler when she made mistakes. Kraus graduated with honors at 17 and moved to Vienna, where she continued her studies at the Vienna Conservatory with Severin Eisenberger (a pupil of Leschetizky), Eduard Steuermann (a pupil of Busoni and Schoenberg) and in 1923, was named a full professor of piano at only 20 years old. After meeting and studying with Artur Schnabel as a result of being neighbors in Italy (where Schnabel spent his summers), Kraus turned her attention towards classical era music and later became known as a specialist in Mozart and Beethoven. Her early chamber music performances and recordings with violinist, Szymon Goldberg also helped gain the critical acclaim that launched her international career. She began to tour Europe, Japan, Australia and South Africa and in 1940 embarked on a tour of Asia. After the war, she settled in New Zealand, where she spent many happy years playing, performing, and teaching.
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