Wladziu Valentino Liberace - May 16, 1919 – February 4, 1987 known as Liberace, was an American pianist and vocalist. Liberace, whose glitzy costumes, giant candelabra and extravagant showmanship made him almost as famous as his piano playing, died yesterday at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 67 years old. His spokesman in New York, Denise Collier, said the cause of death was cardiac arrest due to congestive heart failure brought on by subacute encephalopathy. Encephalopathy is a degenerative disease of the brain. A contributing cause was aplastic anemia, Ms. Collier said. Throughout Liberace's long and lucrative career - his income averaged $5 million a year for more than 25 years - it was hard to make fun of him because he seemed to have so much fun making fun of himself. With his megawatt smile, his furry, feathery costumes, rhinestones as big as the Ritz, piano-shaped rings and a unique blend of Beethoven and the ''Beer Barrel Polka,'' Liberace charmed millions with a flashiness that was almost too much to be believed. But a Liberace performance was not all baubles, bangles and bright beads. Unbowed by years of critical scorn and 175-pound fur capes, he worked hard. During a typical show he was on the stage for more than two hours with only short breaks for costume changes. His audiences loved what he called ''Reader's Digest versions'' of familiar melodies. Liberace whipped through Chopin's ''Minute Waltz'' in 37 seconds and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, which usually fills both sides of a long-playing record, in four minutes. His secret, he said, was ''cutting out the dull parts.'' Because his health was deteriorating, Liberace last month canceled all performances scheduled for 1987. Sequins and Candelabra Liberace realized early that clothes make the man. When he played the Hollywood Bowl in 1952, he put on a set of white tails ''so they could see me in the back row.'' He added a gold lame jacket in Las Vegas. ''Wow!'' he said later. ''They crawled out of the woodwork when they saw it. What started as a gag became a trademark.'' Soon Elvis Presley was wearing a suit of gold lame. Soon Elvis impersonators were wearing suits of gold lame. Then Liberace dared to be really different. He got himself a conservative haircut, mothballed his costumes and switched to traditional two- and three-piece suits. His concert bookings and his income dropped off dramatically, but rebounded when he reinstated the sequins and the candelabra. Liberace's wardrobe eventually filled rack after rack in his mansions and included a silvery plum lame cape with an eight-foot train of pink feathers, a $300,000 Norwegian blue-fox cape with a 16-foot train, and a sequined drum-major's uniform, complete with hot pants. Exaggeration as a Method ''Through exaggeration, I could get my point across much more easily,'' he wrote in an autobiographical picture book, ''The Wonderful Private World of Liberace,'' published last year. ''Don't wear one ring, wear five or six. People ask how I can play with all those rings, and I reply, 'Very well, thank you.' '' Advances in technology enhanced his flamboyance. After American astronauts walked on the moon in 1969, Liberace said he wanted to appear in ''the suit of tomorrow'' - a ''see-through, plastic outfit'' - and play a legless see-through piano ''suspended in air.'' Neither age nor scandal hurt his popularity. In 1982, Scott Thorson, who had been his chauffeur, bodyguard and companion for five years, filed a $113 million lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, asserting that the pianist had broken financial promises to him. The suit was settled last month for $95,000.