Got to talking with a highly respected older generation piano teacher recently. He's a very interesting and intense individual as one might expect.
I sparked him by mentioning about a Sviatoslav Richter box set I recently picked up. His reply was "You have to hear Simon Barere play!"
Apparently Barere made his impact known to the world in the 1930's and thereafter until his bizarre and tragic death at Carnegie Hall in 1951. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage during a performance of Grieg where he collapsed and later died backstage. Rachmaninov called him "a pianistic genius," which would be difficult to dispute.
Here's a sample of his virtuosity playing Balakirev's Islamey:
