The Cuban-born pianist Jorge Bolet was four when he was taken to a piano recital and "knew where that man was sitting was where he wanted to sit".

He began learning at five, won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia at 12 and played at New York's Carnegie Hall at 16.

Bolet's colourful career included serving as a Cuban diplomat and in the US Army, conducting the first performance of The Mikado with an orchestra of GIs in Tokyo and recording the soundtrack for Song Without End, the 1960 biopic of Franz Liszt.

For many years, Bolet was head of piano at the Curtis and made a fascinating series of masterclasses for television.

It was only quite late that he began to be acclaimed as one of the last of the great Romantic pianists.

Technically absolutely assured, with high musical intelligence and a wide range of keyboard colour, he excelled in Liszt, Rachmaninov and the fiendish salon trifles of Leopold Godowsky and Moritz Moszkowski.

A born performer who preferred the concert hall to the recording studio, Bolet nevertheless left two dozen sparkling recordings. He died in 1990 aged 75.

-Roger Moodiman, Marine Parade, Brighton