Jacob Lateiner | Concert pianist, 82

Jacob Lateiner, 82, a concert pianist renowned for his interpretations of Beethoven and of 20th-century music, died Sunday. He lived in Manhattan.

His death was confirmed by the Juilliard School, where Mr. Lateiner had taught from 1966 until his retirement last year. He was also a longtime faculty member of Mannes College the New School for Music.

Mr. Lateiner, who made his debut as a teenager in the 1940s, was a member of the cohort of young American pianists - or YAPs, as they were known to the classical-music trade - that included Eugene Istomin, Gary Graffman, Claude Frank, and Leon Fleisher.

As a soloist, Mr. Lateiner appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras, among them the New York and Berlin Philharmonics, the Boston and Chicago Symphonies, and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras.

As a chamber musician, he performed frequently with the violinist Jascha Heifetz and the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.

Jacob Lateiner was born in Havana in 1928 to Jewish parents who had come from Poland. A gifted pianist as a child, he was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia when he was about 12.

In 1944, at 16, Mr. Lateiner made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, performing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto.

- N.Y. Times News Service