Background
Lili Kraus was born in Budapest in 1903. Her father was from Czechoslovakian Lands, and her mother from an assimilated Jewish Hungarian family.
Lili Kraus was born in Budapest in 1903. Her father was from Czechoslovakian Lands, and her mother from an assimilated Jewish Hungarian family.
Student, Zoltan Kodaly, Bela Bartok. Student, Royal Academy Music, Budapest, 1915—1922. Diploma in teacher, Royal Academy Music, 1925.
Student, Steuermann, New Academy, Vienna, Austria, 1925—1927. Master of Arts, Steuermann, New Academy, Vienna, Austria, 1927. Student, Artur Schnabel, Berlin, 1930—1934.
Doctor of Music (honorary), Chicago Museum College, Roosevelt University, 1969. Doctor of Music, Williams College, 1975. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Texas Christian University, 1980.
In the 1930s, she continued her studies with Severin Eisenberger, Eduard Steuermann in Vienna and Arthur Schnabel in Berlin, who focused her interest in the classical tradition. Lili Kraus soon became known as a specialist in Mozart and Beethoven. Her early chamber music performances and recording with violinist Szymon Goldberg helped gain the critical acclaim that launched her international career.
In the 1930s, she toured Europe, Japan, Australia and South Africa.
In 1940, Kraus embarked on a tour of Asia where, while in Java, she and her family were captured and interned in a concentration camp by the Japanese from June 1943 until August 1945. After the war, she settled in the United Kingdom where she spent many happy years playing and performing and teaching.
She became a British citizen and resumed her career, teaching and touring extensively. In the early 1950s she performed the entire Beethoven sonata cycle with violinist Henri Temianka.
From 1967 to 1983, she taught as artist-in-residence at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
After that she made her home in Asheville, North Carolina, where she died in 1986.
Member of Music Teachers Association California (honorary), Sigma Alpha Iota.
Married Otto Mandl Kraus, October 31, 1930 (deceased August 1956). Children: Ruth Maria Fergus Pope, Michael Otto Patrick.