Claude Frank

Claude Frank (born Claus Johannes Frank; December 24, 1925 – December 27, 2014) was a German-born American pianist.

Biography Of Jewish ancestry, Frank was born in Nuremberg, Germany. His father immigrated to Brussels after the advent of the Third Reich, and the family eventually settled in Paris when Frank was 12. Frank subsequently began studies at the Paris Conservatoire, but in 1940, he and his mother escaped France by way of the Pyrenees and Lisbon, and settled in the USA. Frank studied with Artur Schnabel in New York, for whom he first played in Europe. He also was a pupil of Maria Curcio. He studied composition and conducting at Columbia University, where his teachers included Paul Dessau.

Frank was a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. whom he had met in 1947 at Tanglewood. The couple married in 1959 Other commercial recordings by Frank included a complete set of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, issued on the RCA Victrola label in the Beethoven bicentenary year of 1970, in parallel with a series of live concerts of the complete Beethoven sonatas.

Frank died on December 27, 2014, three days after his 89th birthday.