Leeds Piano Competition 2015 · CC BY 2.0

Menahem Pressler spent over five decades as pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, which he co-founded in 1955 and performed and recorded with continuously until it disbanded in 2008 — one instrumentalist across half a century of a piano trio's core repertoire. A German-born Israeli-American, he also taught for decades at Indiana University Bloomington, where his playing was remembered less for power than for elegance, delicacy, and clarity.