Maria Curcio, who has died aged 89, was one of the most influential and sought-after piano teachers of the second half of the 20th century. Although it can be as misleading to judge teachers by their students as it is to judge pianists by their teachers, the many distinguished artists who turned to her for help and advice attest to her legendary status. These include Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Martha Argerich, Myung-Whun Chung, Barry Douglas, José Feghali, Leon Fleisher, Peter Frankl, Claude Frank, Anthony Goldstone, Ian Hobson, Terence Judd, Radu Lupu, Rafael Orozco, Alfredo Perl, Hugh Tinney, Geoffrey Tozer and Mitsuko Uchida.
Curcio was born in Naples, the daughter of a wealthy Italian businessman and a Brazilian mother, a pianist in her own right, who spotted the girl's exceptional talent at a very early age. The young Maria gave her first concert aged three and was excited to receive flowers, toys and chocolates from the audience. Her mother became overly ambitious: Maria was tutored at home to leave more time for practising and was urged to accept too many engagements too soon, causing her to describe her childhood as "not a happy one" because there was no time to play or have friends. Her mother did, however, see to it that she received the best possible training, arranging for her to study with Alfredo Casella, Carlo Zecchi and, in Paris, with Nadia Boulanger. When she was invited to play to Mussolini, the seven-year-old, with characteristic strong-mindedness, refused to appear in front of "this man who is ruining our country".
When Maria was 15, Zecchi took her with him to attend the pianist Artur Schnabel's masterclasses at Lake Como. She played for Schnabel, who immediately accepted her as a student, describing her as "one of the greatest talents I have ever met". At Schnabel's home, she also met her future husband, Peter Diamand, who was Schnabel's secretary. She accompanied the students of Schnabel's wife, the renowned lieder singer Therese Behr, from whom she claimed to have learned as much as from Schnabel. When he was on tour, she had lessons with Fritz Busch.
This was a wonderfully happy time - she worshipped Schnabel and seemed set for a big international career. The outbreak of the second world war changed all this. Schnabel went to America and Diamand returned to Holland, where he would eventually become director of the Holland festival. Curcio went along and stayed with him and his mother in Amsterdam. She performed often until Jews were banned from playing in public, and she turned down all offers of engagements in protest.
The Diamands were Jewish and Curcio was in considerable danger through her close association with them. Urgent appeals from her parents to return to Italy were ignored. The situation deteriorated and Diamand and his mother went into hiding. Curcio looked after them, risking her life to get food and obtain forged identity papers for them. Through stress, deprivation and malnutrition, she contracted tuberculosis and had to spend many months in a sanatorium after the war.
She was left far too weak to play but, with great dedication, she started to rebuild her technique, giving concerts when she was well enough to do so. Artists she collaborated with included Benjamin Britten, Carlo Maria Giulini, Szymon Goldberg, Otto Klemperer, Josef Krips, Pierre Monteux and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. After hearing her in recital, the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler suggested to Walter Legge that she should record Schubert for HMV, but another health crisis prevented this from happening.
Curcio and Diamand married in 1947. Her health meant a performing career was no longer an option, so she turned her attention to teaching, believing she had always had a gift for it, having worked with Schnabel's students, many of whom were older than her. She also coached singers at the behest of Krips when he conducted the Netherlands Opera. As an Italian, she had a natural affinity with bel canto and it is no surprise that Mozart and Chopin featured prominently in the repertoire she assigned to students.
With the help of Britten, she settled in London in 1965 and it was here that her "second career" really took off. Annie Fischer, Giulini and Rostropovich sent students to her and soon young pianists were flocking to her door. She was insistent that students should progress step by step and if anyone appeared unrealistically ambitious, she would say: "One does not build a house from the roof."
I started studying with Curcio in 1970, and so began an inspirational association that would last almost until 2006, when she moved to Portugal. I used to marvel at the acuteness of her aural perception. She would sometimes stand with her back to the piano and say: "I think your left wrist is rather high." How she could do this without seeing my hands, used to puzzle me until I realised that for her there was no division between music and technique. A "beautiful sound" was of little interest to her - what she searched for was a sound that would convey the essence of a work. Although she advocated studying away from the instrument, "we must hear what we see and see what we hear", she was immensely practical in dealing with the physical aspects of piano playing. Her willingness to adapt to each student, and her generosity (she sometimes taught without charge those who could not afford lessons) testify to her desire to help others.
Curcio was no Schnabel clone. Although his edition of the Beethoven Sonatas was always at hand in her studio, she preferred students to work from the Henle Urtext. The Austro-German repertoire was central to her teaching but, thanks to her studies with Casella, she was equally at home with French music. When I played Janác...#728;ek's rarely performed Capriccio for her, her insight seemed so instinctive that I wondered if she had encountered the work before. "No darling, but I do know Jenufa," she replied.
Her interests ranged far beyond music. She spoke Italian, English, French, Dutch and German and collected art. As her teaching career began to draw to a close, Curcio became increasingly aware of her musical legacy and, during one of our last conversations, she expressed her happiness that her former students taught at each of the four London conservatoires, and many worldwide.
Her marriage to Peter was dissolved in 1971. Maria was lovingly cared for during her final illness by her one-time housekeeper, Luzia Pidgon.
Barry Douglas writes: Maria Curcio was an extraordinary human being, musician, teacher, cook and friend. She clarified music and technique and, to this day, I benefit from her wisdom. She told me she had worked out all these answers while lying in a hospital bed in Holland; she was recovering from TB. Apparently Otto Klemperer was in the same hospital and flirted dreadfully, managing to spill all her orange juice over her.
Maria's lessons lasted for hours and I would go every day. She never stood still, but continually renewed and relearned her craft and passed it quickly on to her students. Once she showed me a particular muscle at the top of the arm of the right hand which enabled her to play with more of a singing tone, and I use it to this day.