Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner What is young Claudio Arrau wearing in this picture?

I was checking Arrau's quasi-complete box set of Schumann's solo piano music to see if the Toccata was included—it's not, dang—and came upon this photo (taken "c. 1919") in the liner notes.

Does anyone know anything, or can anyone speculate, about his attire? Are there religious or nationalistic associations, perhaps?

Steven

maybe its a fancy bib. The photographer may of caught him eating a lobster dinner on the piano.

Looks like he's in drag to me.

I will take a wild guess and say that Claudio is dressed in his Sunday's best for a portrait. This "lace collar" would not be unusual at the turn of the past century in "Spanish Aristocracy" circles. I know he is from Chile but his ancestors had aristocratic connections in the old country. Doesn't it remind you of a diluted version of Velazquez' portraits?
Pure speculation. But that is my hypothesis and I am sticking with it.

Nyireghazi, this is too tame for drag.. And you never told us about your user name. Hungary? ( I am up to my ears reading about Janos Starker)

I'm with Andromaque on this, although the date of this photograph would make the wearing of a lace collar a little bit late to coincide with European fashion.

Regards,

I don't think it was fashionable. It was an attempt at identifying with nobility under select circumstances, such as the generation of a "permanent record" (i.e. a photograph), akin to having your oil portrait done in your best regalia in the older days....

I, too, would have guessed it's a formal outfit for the serious occasion of a portrait. But it wasn't just the lace collar that startled me, but rather the whole ensemble (or at least what we can make out of it in the photo). Specifically, it looks very much like he's wearing a wig.

I know styles have changed dramatically in a hundred years, but everything about the pose is strikingly bizarre to me. I'm strongly reminded of Norman Bates's mother or of Whistler's Mother, and it seems so effete and emasculating for a 16-year-old boy whatever the circumstances.

Steven

It does seem weird (I had the same first impression as Nyiregyhazi)...but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt until we know more about the circumstances.

Really? Then that's the most restrained example I've ever seen. Or perhaps drag wasn't quite the over-the-top affair it has become these days. Then again, Barbra Streisand hadn't been born yet.

@sotto voce: Do you like those late Phillips recordings? I haven't heard them all, but the Fantasy and the F# minor Sonata made for rather painful listening, at least if one likes a little Florestan with their Eusebius.

Perhaps it is a school uniform.

So ... how does the wig fit in with any of the theories so far?

Steven

I still say its a fancy bib.

Looks like a woman wearing a doilie.

y'all don't know y'all's drag -

This is drag -

C. A. 1907

He looks like Jane Hudson - 'BABY' Jane Hudson -

Here's little Adore Loomis, the aspiring child-star from heck doing one last dance before he meets his maker in The Day of the Locust. The Shirley Temple look was apparently fashionable boy drag in the 1930s.

Steven

Looks like a woman to me too...

I'm tending towards the professional-photographer-with_Velazquez-fixation theory

Maybe it's Mrs. Claudio Arrau misidentified. The profile doesn't even look like him.
Even if you pencil in a mustache, it still doesn't look like him.