CLARA HASKIL (Bucharest, 7.1.1895 – Brussels, 7.12.1960)

After beginning to study in Vienna with R. Robert, she attended the Paris Conservatoire. There she studied with Mme Allem-Chené and later with Cortot and Gabriel Fauré. In 1910 she was awarded a ‘Premier Prix’, and thereafter she was an intense concert performer, playing with famous musicians, including Enescu, Ysaÿe and Casals, in the main centres of Europe and America. In 1942 she moved to Vevey, Switzerland, where she obtained her citizenship in 1949. In 1957 she was awarded the Légion d’Honneur. Two years after her death, in 1962, the ‘Clara Haskil Association’ was founded in Vevey, which organised an important piano competition in her name.

ARTHUR GRUMIAUX (Villers-Perwun, Belgium, 21.3.1921 – Brussels, 16.10.1986)

He entered the Brussels Conservatory at the age of 12, in the class of Alfred Dubois, a pupil of Eugène Ysaÿe. There he studied counterpoint and fugue with Jean Absil. In 1939 he won the ‘Henry Vieuxtemps’ competition and was subsequently the first violinist to receive the virtuosity prize instituted by the Belgian government. He then studied with George Enescu in Paris. He played in the most important concert halls on a Guarnieri del Gesà (1744) and on a Stradivarius (called ‘The Titan’) with Clara Haski and in a trio with Georgers Janzer (viola) and Eva Gzako (cello). He was made a baron in 1973.