The Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter was largely self-taught as a child.

Not until he was 22 did he go to Moscow for formal study. But his genius was instantly recognised and soon he was touring the length of the USSR. Yet for decades he was forbidden to travel abroad.

Although his name became known in the West through recordings, his New York debut in 1960, when he was already 45, had colossal impact. From then on, the world was at his feet.

Equally authoritative in Bach, Debussy or Prokofiev, Richter probably had the widest repertoire of any pianist and was forever adding fresh works.

Whatever he played, he brought a sense of enormous intellectual commitment to every note.

He was also a master of extremes. He could spin out a Schubert movement for 30 minutes of muted meanderings or unleash whirlwinds of hammering fortissimos in Rachmaninov or Scriabin.

Introspective, enigmatic, granite-faced, Richter latterly suffered from depression and became increasingly quirky in his concert appearances, playing from the score

in near-darkness and preferring a Yamaha to a Steinway and a provincial French barn to Carnegie Hall. He died in 1997, aged 82.

-Roger Moodiman, Marine Parade, Brighton