Like his great teacher Artur Schnabel, the American pianist Claude Frank, who has died aged 89, achieved an inner, visionary quality in his work and was admired not least for his refusal to play to the gallery. Like Schnabel, too, he had the ability, in passages of exceptional emotional depth, to make the listener forget the performer and perhaps even the instrument itself. Known particularly for his interpretations of the classical repertoire, especially Beethoven, of whose sonatas he made a much-admired recording, he also performed music for two pianos with his wife, Lilian Kallir, and chamber music with their daughter, the violinist Pamela Frank.
Born in Nuremberg, Germany, he grew up hearing lieder about the house – Brahms was a special favourite of his mother, who was a keen amateur singer. Having shown great promise in piano lessons, he was taken to play for Schnabel at his villa in Tremezzo on Lake Como. Schnabel recognised his talent, but recommended he have lessons first with pupils of his, including Schnabel’s own son, Karl Ulrich.
Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1937, the Frank family, who were Jewish, moved first to Paris (where Claude had lessons at the Conservatoire) and then to Madrid, where he practised on a piano belonging to a department store for four hours a day. After giving a recital in Madrid in 1938, Frank, along with his family, was offered a visa to Brazil or the US. They chose the latter and it was while waiting in Lisbon, Portugal, for a boat that he glimpsed the “unusually pretty” girl who would one day become his wife, playing the piano in a practice room.
Having reached the US safely, Frank resumed contact with Schnabel, though the tuition that ensued was interrupted by military service (he became an American citizen in 1944). He also took theory and composition classes with Paul Dessau and Normand Lockwood. After his recital debut in Times Hall, New York, in 1947, he was invited to play with the NBC Symphony Orchestra the following year. For a time he was active as a choral conductor, but by the early 1950s his international career as a pianist was well established.
His first London performance was at the Wigmore Hall in January 1950. He then appeared at major venues across the US, Australia, Africa and Israel and was frequently engaged as a soloist by the top orchestras of New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Berlin and London.
In 1959 he married Lilian, whom he met properly at Tanglewood, Massachusetts, in 1947, and with whom he bonded over their mutual dislike of Prokofiev. With her he began to explore the repertoire for two pianos, as well as duets by Mozart, Brahms and others. In 1964 he joined the newly formed Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and from 1971 appeared often with the Juilliard Quartet. He was also highly respected as a teacher, urging his students to read literature, including the fantastical works of ETA Hoffmann, the better to understand the Romantic sensibility.
He taught at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the Yale School of Music in Connecticut and the Steans Music Institute, Ravinia. His pupils included Richard Goode and Ian Hobson.
The Beethoven cycle he recorded in 1970, marking 200 years since the composer’s birth, demonstrated all Frank’s finer qualities. The purity and warmth of his tone were remarkable, contributing to the spiritual quality of his music-making. His natural shaping of phrases and seemingly effortless technique enabled him to develop finely calibrated, undemonstrative interpretations. Faster movements could have a fiery muscularity, but they were integrated into performances notable for their intellectual and structural coherence. He also recorded concertos by Mozart and played and recorded repertoire for violin and piano, including the 10 Beethoven sonatas, with Pamela.
An erudite and cultured man, he nevertheless had an impish sense of humour and was one of the six western pianists who performed alongside four Chinese players in the Olympic Centenary Piano Extravaganza during the 2008 Games in Beijing. Lilian died in 2004. He is survived by Pamela.
• Claude (Claus Johannes) Frank, pianist, born 24 December 1925; died 27 December 2014
