Gieseking was renowned for his subtle touch, pedaling, and dynamic control—particularly in the music of Debussy and Ravel; he made integral recordings of all their published works which were extant during his life.

[1] Born in Lyon, France, the son of a German doctor and lepidopterist, Gieseking first started playing the piano at age four, without formal instruction.

Gieseking performed in front of Nazi cultural organizations such as the NS Kulturgemeinde and "expressed a desire to play for the Führer".

[2] Along with a number of other German artists, Gieseking was blacklisted during the initial postwar period, but by January 1947, he had been cleared by the U.S. military government,[3] enabling him to resume his international career, although his U.S. tour scheduled for January 1949 was canceled owing to protests by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Veterans Committee.

Because of his gifts of a natural technique, perfect pitch, and abnormally acute faculty for memorization, Gieseking mastered unfamiliar repertoire with relatively little practice.

Sometimes, according to Harold C. Schonberg's book The Great Pianists (1963), he could even learn an entire concerto by heart in one day.

Gieseking's 1944 performance of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto, in which anti-aircraft fire is audible in the background,[4] is one of the earliest stereo recordings,[citation needed] following a rendition of the same work in 1934 for Columbia, with Bruno Walter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.