Pianist. A prolific artist noted particularly for his Chopin interpretations, he is known in the West chiefly thru his recordings. Raised in the Czech Capital by a moderately well-off family, he developed a love for music via trips to the opera with his amateur musicial father. Though he did not take-up the piano until the late age of seven, his progress in private lessons was rapid and by 1946 he was performing on Czech Radio. At 20, he entered the Prague Conservatory, but a neck injury sidelined him from the concert stage until 1954. A 1957 Master Class with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli refined his technique and helped launch his international career; Mr. Moravec bowed at London's Wigmore Hall in 1959 with a program featuring works ny Prokofiev, Chopin, and his fellow countryman Leos Janacek, then in 1962, on the strength of a bootleg tape, was invited to New York to record the Chopin Nocturnes for the Connoiseur Society, a small high-end label. In 1964, he was engaged by George Szell to appear with the Cleveland Orchestra, and though his performance was well-received, his refusal to bend his interpretation of Beethovens Fourth Piano Concerto to match that of the Maestro resulted in his not being asked-back for a decade. A nice man who could relate well with his fans, on stage he was an aristocrat who was long on substance and short on flash; while he was anti-Communist, a fact that caused him problems at home, he ignored his frequent opportunities to defect. Mr. Moravec had his track and ran on it, performing pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, and Czech composers that he knew he could present at his own standard of perfection. He made several recordings for the Supraphon label, has a two-disk set in Phillips' 1999 "Great Pianists of the 20th Century" collection, in 2000 received the Charles V Prize for service to humanity as well as the Czech Republic's Medal of Merit, in 2002 was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cannes Festival, last appeared at the Edinburgh Festival in 2008, and performed in public as late as 2012. At his death, almost all of his recorded legacy remained available, the LPs long-since having been remastered onto CD.