US piano virtuoso renowned for dynamic and lyrical playing as well as championing the cause of his fellow sufferers from arthritis
The glamorous career of the American pianist Byron Janis, the first of Vladimir Horowitz’s few pupils, was blighted by crippling arthritis in both wrists and all 10 fingers. Insisting on playing through the pain, he continued to perform for more than a decade, with everyone bar a handful of people unaware of his condition.
From the time of his Carnegie Hall debut in 1948, Janis, who has died aged 95, had been hailed as a second Horowitz, and his high-octane virtuosity, coupled with a rare potential for poetic expressivity, established him as one of the most formidably accomplished pianists of his age.
