Nelson Freire has died aged 77

The Brazilian pianist, Nelson Freire has passed away aged 77.

Born in 1944 in Boa Esperança in South-East Brazil, Freire made his public debut at the age of four as a pupil of Lucia Branco, then moved on to study in Vienna with Bruno Seidlhofer thanks to a grant from the Brazilian government. He embraced a wide repertoire and recorded extensively with CBS (now Sony Classical), Philips, and Deutsche Grammophon. In 2001 Nelson began recording exclusively for Decca Classics, winning awards including Gramophone Record of the Year in 2007 for his Brahms Piano Concertos and the Latin Grammy for Best Classical Recording in 2013 for his album Brasileiro.

Decca Classics’ label director, Dominic Fyfe, was Nelson Freire’s recording producer from 2002. He remembered Nelson as ‘the consummate recording artist. He was more meticulously prepared for the studio than almost any artist I have encountered and his recordings among the least edited. Paradoxically he claimed never to listen to his own recordings, but he knew when his performance matched his exacting standards and he placed his trust in our hands to capture this. We will miss him not just for his extraordi​nary artistry but also for his friendship, his humour, his humility. He was one of the greats and truly irreplaceable’.