The German pianist and conductor Lars Vogt, who has died aged 51 of cancer, came to prominence after taking second prize at the 1990 Leeds International Piano Competition. To a repertory including Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, but centred predominantly on Romantic composers such as Brahms, Schumann, Grieg, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, he brought exceptional sensitivity and lyricism, the wistful, restrained emotional register of Brahms’s late pieces suiting him particularly well.
Though ceding first prize to Artur Pizarro in Leeds, Vogt impressed with his mercurial, witty Haydn and an account of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition that combined subtlety and grandeur. In the concerto finale, his mature performance of the Schumann heralded a player of remarkable eloquence and unaffected charisma.
