Our Daily Dead

NY Times
Grant Johannesen, a pianist best known as an elegant interpreter of early-20th-century French music, died on Sunday at a friend’s home near Munich. He was 83 and lived in New York and Palm Beach, Fla.

His son, David Johannesen, announced the death.

Mr. Johannesen was a sensitive player who was more interested in exploring musical byways that fascinated him than in repeating the warhorses of the repertory, and as a teacher, he advised his students to follow a similar path. That is not to say that he ignored the standard works entirely: throughout his six-decade career, his recital programs often included music by Bach, Beethoven or Chopin amid contemporary American works and French scores, and he made superb recordings of Chopin in the 1950’s and of Schubert in the late 70’s.

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