Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt's (1811-1886) 12 Etudes d'exécution transcendante [click here to download] played by Claudio Arrau.

Liszt’s hands were long and narrow, and lack of webbing between the fingers allowed him to take wide stretches with comparative ease. Because his fingertips were blunted rather than tapered, they gave maximum traction across the surface of the keyboard. Another physical advantage for Liszt was that his fourth fingers were unusually flexible, and this made it easier for him to play shimmering textures with several things going on inside the same hand simultaneously. His keyboard textures often assume that the player can stretch a 10th without difficulty. Liszt’s fingerings are of absorbing interest. They arise naturally from the keyboard and from the anatomy of the human hand.

From the entry on Liszt in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition.