Alicia de Larrocha, who has died aged 86, was the leading Spanish pianist of her time, and widely considered the pre-eminent interpreter of two Spanish composers of the early 20th century: Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados. She was also a distinguished exponent of mainstream works from Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to Schumann and Rachmaninov.
Born in Barcelona, she had a natural advantage in native repertoire, since both her mother and her aunt had been pupils of Granados, although neither of her two sisters nor her brother took much interest in the piano. In mellow middle age, Larrocha recalled that at two she had been a determined infant, and banged her head on the floor until it bled, just to be allowed to play. Her aunt began teaching her, having discovered that her niece could reproduce the melody and most of the harmony of one of Grieg's Lyric Pieces after hearing it played by one of her pupils. At three, Larrocha began lessons, on her own insistence, with the legendary Frank Marshall, an Englishman who settled in Spain and had himself been a pupil of Granados; he was director of his own academy in Barcelona, where Larrocha succeeded him after his death in 1959.
Yet Larrocha was not the child prodigy of which legends are made, and she was certainly never exploited as such. Right up to her 20s, her parents never pushed her, and she enjoyed a secure, quiet upbringing. Marshall remained her only teacher, though she came into contact with distinguished musicians from an early age, meeting Artur Rubinstein when she was five. That was the age at which she played some minuets by Bach and Mozart at the International Exhibition in Barcelona. She advanced to learning Scarlatti and Schumann, but did not touch Spanish music until her teens. When she was 12 she played Mozart's Coronation Concerto, No 26 in D major K537, with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra conducted by Enrique Fernandez Arbus, orchestrator of Albéniz's Iberia.
During the Spanish civil war, Marshall left Spain, and Larrocha played simply for herself, with coaching from her aunt, and also composed some music, which she modestly dismissed afterwards as trifles. Apart from occasional invitations to play in Paris and Switzerland, she had no definite career until after the second world war, when from 1947 onwards she began touring Europe extensively. She first visited the US in 1955, when she played Mozart's Concerto No 23 in A major K488 and Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and she was launched in earnest there by five concerts with the New York Philharmonic in 1965.
Meanwhile, in 1958, Larrocha had married a fellow pianist, Juan Torra, with whom she had played as a duo when they were both students of Marshall. He subsequently taught at the Academia Marshall, becoming co-director with her, and advised her on programmes. They had a son, Juan, and daughter, Alicia, with whom Larrocha regretted not spending more of her time – she left for a concert tour of South America when her son was one month old – yet it was her husband who spurred her on.
Larrocha did not regard herself as a specialist, yet her reputation rests very largely on her playing of Albéniz and Grandados. In itself this is remarkable, because she had small hands (she was also short in stature, only 4ft 9in), and Albéniz's music in particular calls for a large stretch with its enormous chords and intricate textures. She was lucky to have a long fifth finger, however, and a wide stretch between thumb and index finger, so that she could reach a tenth, whereas some, though not many, pianists can hardly manage more than an octave. All her life she also practised hand-stretching exercises, and was assiduous at practising altogether, because she loved it. She recorded the major works of both composers, including Iberia and the Suite Española by Albéniz, and Goyescas by Granados, several times. The playing is above all controlled, formal (checking the opposite tendency in both composers' styles, grounded as they were in folk music and improvisation), yet it is also warm, with a radiant, jewel-like tone quality. It avoids overstatement and impulsiveness and is in immaculate taste.
Larrocha had a wide repertoire, but two composers with whom she was particularly associated were Mozart and Schumann. She had recorded several of Mozart's concertos with various orchestras and conductors before embarking on a series with the English Chamber Orchestra and Colin Davis in the early 1990s that was never completed.
Earlier, in the 1970s, she recorded two of Rachmaninov's concertos – the first and the third, one of the most gruelling of all virtuoso warhorses – with the London Symphony Orchestra and André Previn, which is not so surprising for someone who managed the near-unplayable extravagances of Albéniz with such aplomb. The Philips Great Pianists of the 20th Century series included two double-CDs of Larrocha, one of Spanish, the other of 18th-century repertoire, and in May 2003, to mark her 80th birthday, Decca reissued a wide range of her recordings in a set of seven CDs.
Although Larrocha had studied the history of the keyboard literature from Bach and Handel to Prokofiev, that did not prevent her going further. She was a devotee of the subtle, understated music of her fellow Catalan, Federico Mompou, as well as other Iberian contemporaries. Chamber music involved her in partnerships with the cellist Gaspar Cassadó, and the Emerson, Guarneri and Tokyo quartets. She also partnered two of Spain's greatest sopranos, Victoria de los Angeles and Montserrat Caballé.
Larrocha continued touring well into her 70s, and retired in 2003, after 75 years of public performance. She visited the US regularly, sometimes more than once a year; toured Australia and New Zealand in 1995; and Japan and South America in 1999. Her visits to Britain were unfortunately not as frequent as her reputation warranted, ending in 2000 with appearances with the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester and at the Wigmore Hall in London.
Her many honours included the Prince of Asturias prize in 1994, and she was the first Spanish artist to be awarded the Unesco Prize, in 1995. Her husband died in 1982, and she is survived by her children.
• Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle, pianist, born 23 May 1923; died 25 September 2009
