Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995)
1960s
“It has always been my world,” Michelangeli once said
of Debussy’s works
In the 1960s Benedetti Michelangeli returned again to the concert platform with tours of South America and the USSR, and a major recital in Paris.
His career, after reaching its peak in the 1960s with his débuts in the Soviet Union (1964) and Japan (1965), and with his return to the United States starting in 1966, and after a splendid period in the 1970s, gradually waned in the 1980s. (Piero Rattalino)
1960 In the presence of Pope John XXIII, he gave his first concert in the Vatican with the RAI Rome Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Massimo Freccia. In Vercelli (Piedmont, northern Italy), he was awarded the Viotti d'Oro prize (1961); previous honorands include Renata Tebaldi and Giuseppe Di Stefano (1958). Future premiati: Elizabeth Schwarzkopf (1990); Dame Joan Sutherland & Rossini Opera Festival di Pesaro (1991). In 1999 it was awarded to Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon and to Martha Argerich.
[As a Classical philologist and historian, I feel bound to point out that Vercellae was an important municipium, near which Roman general and consul Gaius Marius defeated the Cimbri and the Teutones in the Battle of Vercellae in 101 BC.]
Alberto Neumann recalls...
In the same years (1961), Argentinian pianist and student of ABM, Alberto Neumann (1933-2021), won the international Viotti Piano Competition in Vercelli. To Il Quotidiano (21.1.2008), he said:
"I met Michelangeli for the first time in Buenos Aires in 1949. His piano playing was already legendary at the time. I played for him in one of the most beautiful homes in the city, the Landini-Favelevics, where he studied every day of his long stay in Buenos Aires. He was in an armchair a little far from the piano, and I had my hands resting on my knees. Before starting, I looked at him; he was very pale, and I thought, "How sorry I am! This brilliant young man won't be able to live for more than another month!" Michelangeli seemed distracted; at times his eyes would roll over and his sockets would remain white. It was terribly impressive. But as soon as I began to lift my left hand from my knee and move it toward the keyboard, he announced, "Mazurka in A minor!" I felt like I was in the presence of a magician or a fortune teller! From that moment on, my connection with the Maestro was established."
-You studied with illustrious masters (Vincenzo Scaramuzza, Carlo Zecchi, Gieseking), so why did you decide to perfect your skills with Benedetti Michelangeli?
"It's true, I studied with the great masters: in Buenos Aires, I belonged to Scaramuzza's school, who himself had studied with Rossomandi in Italy. It was the Italian School in all its splendour, incomparable, given that the piano was born in Italy and that the father of piano composition was Clementi, a composer whom Michelangeli primarily (innanzi tutto) had studied! The Maestro greatly admired both Zecchi and Gieseking, who were, in fact, also my teachers. I also studied with Kempff later and with other famous masters; but, in a certain sense, I felt I needed to put some order into the ideas that had arisen from these experiences. On the other hand, as an avid reader of detective novels, I had suspected that the mysterious Michelangeli was keeping a secret, and so I wanted to discover the truth. I wanted to undertake the most adventurous step imaginable."
D'altra parte, lettore appassionato di romanzi gialli, avevo sospettato che il misterioso Michelangeli custodiva un segreto e quindi volevo scoprire la verità. Volevo accingermi a compiere il passo più avventuroso che si possa immaginare.
-What is ABM's most important teaching?
"The core of ABM's teaching lies in his elementary technical system, which he sought to perfect throughout his life, simplifying it to the point of reducing it to a formula. Like Einstein with the theory of relativity! That was Michelangeli's secret domain. Thanks to my friendship with my fellow student, Boccanegra, we were able, together, to penetrate the Master's secret universe. Simple, it's true, but at the same time, difficult to achieve! It's an oscillatory method, inspired by the ancient Greek and Latin laws of the dual, intimate nature of rhythm: lifting and supporting.
-A memory of ABM the man?
"ABM told me that I chose my readings carefully. From then on, I offered him every book I finished; we would later discuss them. On the journey from Trento to Bolzano, he shared his impressions of Hermann Hesse's "The Crystal Bead Game" while simultaneously pushing his Ferrari to top speed, saying: "Don't be afraid, Alberto, I can concentrate properly on both things at the same time: on my thoughts about the book and on driving my Ferrari! Michelangeli was the most generous and detached man I have ever met, an enemy of the cult of personality and certain superficial aspects of the society of the spectacle!"
-How did you discover the piece "Carillon" that you'll perform at the San Benedetto concert?
"The piece "Carillon," which I consider the most beautiful ever composed, is the work of the Maestro's father, Giuseppe Benedetti Michelangeli. ABM played it in the late 1930s, and recently the musicologist Stefano Biosa discovered it and sent it to me, and I studied it passionately. Last summer I performed it in public in Paris."
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Time magazine 19 December 1960 reflected on Michelangeli's behaviour during recording sessions. 'During rare recording sessions, he will sit pondering for hours before placing his hands on keys, or walk out to take the speaking air in his car. Or he may smash an offending disc over his knees, as he did at Naples a few years ago, destroying two weeks' work.
'Like a big fish that has been sometimes sighted but never hooked, Italy’s Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli has a reputation as one of the world’s best—and most eccentric—pianists, even though he remains elusive to both critics and audiences. Rated as Italy’s No. i keyboard artist, Michelangeli seldom surfaces to perform, yet keeps the waters of controversy thrashing. Some call him great; others regard his style as too light and chilly.'
Time magazine, 19 September 1960
Thunderbolt!
"The last movement in St Peter's is famously interrupted with a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder – a sign of divine approval, we must hope."
28 April, 1960: Aula della Benedizione, Vatican City State
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.5 in E-flat major, Op.73 (Emperor)
– Massimo Freccia / Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma della RAI
In April 1960, Michelangeli presented Beethoven's Fifth Concerto to the Italian President Giovanni Gronchi in Rome and to Pope John XXIII at an afternoon concert. In addition to Beethoven, the following were heard at this concert: Fontane di Roma by Ottorino Respighi and Te Deum by Zoltan Kodály, conducted by Massimo Frecci.
Corriere della Sera, 29.4.1960
'The opening bars promise an outstanding performance. Following this, Toscanini-protégé Massimo Freccia, the orchestra’s principal conductor at the time, leads a brilliant, fiery, straight-down-the-line exposition which, if orchestrally fallible in places (very flabby horns), does nothing to disappoint our expectation. Then Michelangeli enters and promptly slows the tempo down. In spite of many splendid moments he is generally too wayward to create a convincingly Beethovenian effect and, with Freccia returning to his original tempo whenever he can, our discomfort is complete. The best thing is the slow movement, where the pianist’s fine sculpting of the line is again in evidence. In the finale he himself sets off at a brisk tempo which he slows down considerably at several points; so perhaps he wanted Freccia to conduct the first movement in that way. The many magisterial moments of this performance tend to remain in the mind, however; though far from ideal, it is difficult to set it completely aside.
'This, by the way, is the recording famous for the violent Roman thunderstorm heard to break out in the quiet wind-down before the final coda – another recording with the same orchestra and conductor, given as part of the RAI’s concert season a couple of weeks later, presumably without the thunder-clap, has also been circulated.'
[Christopher Howell, reviewing the recording]
The other Emperor - with Freccia but sans thunderbolt & lightning: 14 May, 1960: Rome
Prague
Friday, 20 May, 1960, Rudolfinum – Dvořák Hall, Prague, Cz.
Baldassare Galuppi: Sonáta C dur
Muzio Clementi: Sonáta B dur
Fryderyk Chopin: Sonáta b moll op. 35
Claude Debussy: Dětský koutek (Children's Corner)
Maurice Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit (Kašpar noci)
Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli is undoubtedly one of those world-famous pianists whose concerts are eagerly awaited all over the world. The Prague audience was very disappointed when his original performance was cancelled due to illness and it seemed that Michelangeli would not come to Prague at all. In the last days of the festival, the good news came that Michelangeli would take part in the Prague concert. The House of Artists was packed to the brim so that the audience could witness his Sonata in A major and, after Clementi's Sonata in B flat major, he performed Chopin's well-known Sonata in B flat minor, with such force that the audience shivered with cold during the funeral procession, and it was only after a long time that the audience burst into enthusiastic applause after the finale of the sonata. After the break, Debussy's Children's Corner and Ravel's Gaspard were performed, in which the master gave further proof of his magical art. He had to add additional numbers to the great and unforgettable evening.
Új Szó (Hungarian) 11 June 1960
One YouTube comment states: 'The 1959 Gaspard de la Nuit London is close but this is the greatest Gaspard of them all. The lines and voices are so clean and clear and effortless that it takes your breath away.' To which someone else adds: 'Sorry, I have to disagree, but Pogorelich's Gaspard in the 1980 is on another level entirely, both studio 1983 and live 1981 on here, but he has other expressions, all of which I woud listen to instead. ABM here is cooler, much more mechanical.'
'A recording of Gaspard from the 1960 Prague Spring Festival (Music & Arts CD 817, and Multi-Sonic CD 310193) reveals him at his most diabolical. In this reading Michelangeli transforms music into metaphor, codifying the enchantments of Aloysius Bertrand’s poem with disarming elan. With hands like wands, he conjures the moist and moonswept spray that shrouds Ondine’s siren song in a thousand sorrows. Lurking behind Scarbo is the ensorcelled cosmos of the pianist’s favourite novel; in his hands its arid harmonies and darting rhythms shimmer, sauté and grimace as demonically as the Bulgakov’s Behemoth, Satan’s sadistic feline familiar in The Master and Margarita. "Again the Devil…in the affairs of virtuosity one always returns to the Devil," writes Vladimir Jankelevitch. "Such is the shameful connivance of virtuosity and devilry."' (John Bell Young)
During this stay in Rome, Michelangeli was struck by neuritis of the arms, and his doctors advised him to give up concerts for an indefinite period.
However, his health problems were soon resolved and on June 6th, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli went back to Prague with his Petrof piano to play a concert in the Albertov Hall in front of an audience of two thousand people. The program included compositions by Galuppi, Clementi, Chopin, Debussy and Ravel, and as proof of his “tremendous success”, three encores were played afterwards. (Corriere della Sera, 7.6.1960)
As Vilém Pospíšil describes in the volume “Famous Guests of the Prague Spring” from 1962, this visit to Czechoslovakia did not reconcile the “different minds and opinions of the judges”. However, it was not about any imperfection on his part or a “disagreement with the execution or conception of a certain work”, but about the acceptance or not of its entire aesthetics, “or even the morality of art and the artist”. According to V. Pospíšil, Michelangeli acts as an “aristocratic artist” who “masters the unimaginable richness of the key scale”. His emotionality. “lightened dynamics” and “transparent sound”, in a word his artistic expression, according to Václav Holzknecht (Hudební rozhledy: Praha: Panorama, 16. 06. 1960) “springs from his personality, but also from the climate and culture of his country,from the heritage of his ancestors. There is precise order in it, and at the same time sensual beauty, delicious comfort and joy, with which it finally fills us. It is Italy in its classical form, if we have fallen in love with a predator such as Sviatoslav Richter, we have the opposite in Michelangeli. […] This master […] does not want to carry away with violent passions: he is an Apollonian type. We are not used to similar ways of playing, and so this art may seem somewhat strange to us. […]”.
Katia Vendrame
The hall in the House of Artists was overflowing with people: the ground floor and the balcony were filled with seats, galleries and middle aisles, so that not an apple would have fallen. It is strange that this pianist should have caused a crowd psychosis. He is not a captivating listener. He is more a personality of Latin taste, moderate and noble, who does not go beyond the usual greed for sensations. One could wonder if his artistic expression does not result from a fragile physical disposition. This forty-year-old is delicate, thin and often wipes his forehead: you almost wonder that he chose such hard work as playing the piano. But his artistic expression springs much more from his entire personality, from the climate and culture of his country, from the heritage of his ancestors: there is precise order in him and at the same time, sensual beauty, delicious well-being and joy, which ultimately fills us. 'This is Italy in its classical form. If we have fallen in love with a predator like Svjatoslav Richter, we have a counterpart in Michelangeli. This master of beautiful sound and absolute technique does not want to be carried away by the violent and passionate: he is Apollonian. We are not used to such cases, and so this art can somewhat mislead us. Indeed, the performances of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli are met with enthusiasm on the one hand and skepticism and reservations on the other. Nevertheless, he has aroused general interest and reflections on his playing can be fruitful for us. He played the sonata by Baldassare Galuppi, Muzio Clementi (B major), Chopin's B flat minor, Debussy's Children's Corner and Ravel's "Caspar of the Night". In the Italian sonatas he showed an airy technique, balanced and audible everywhere; he gave Chopin's work an emotional drama, perhaps he aroused astonishment with the perhaps excessive emotionality of the march and lyrical parts in general (almost regularly with the left hand slightly ahead of the right): emotionality, which in contemporary performers is usually limited to a discreet minimum, is very emphasised in him. He performed Debussy with delightful delicacy and Ravel very impressively, for example he considerably calmed the demonic nature of Scarbao The Petrof piano, which he plays and sends to his concerts, sounds wonderful to him in all positions. This man is extraordinary and his concerts cannot leave us indifferent.
Václav Holzknecht, Hudební Rozhledy, 1960 (XIII/1-24)1960 / No. 13. He was one of the founders of the Prague Spring; a memorial plaque and bust are located on his house in Široká Street where he lived.
3 June, 1960: Prague, Czechoslovakia (Radio Broadcast )
· Debussy: Children’s Corner (Suite)
· Chopin: Piano Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.35
– Praga PRD/DSD 350 091 [SACD] (Debussy) & PRD/DSD 350 110 [SACD] (Chopin). Chopin also on Praga PR 250 042.
Giovanni "Nino" Rota Rinaldi (1911 – 10 April 1979), friend and composer, best known for his film scores for Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti, (ll gattopardo/ The Leopard) and for Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet] wrote a concerto for ABM in 1959/60. The Concerto in C , to which Rota returned several times after 1960 during repeated meetings with Michelangeli, was never performed by its dedicatee. The wait for the great pianist's genuine availability having been deemed futile, the Concerto – on this occasion titled Partita to keep open the possibility of a première with Michelangeli – was performed twice in 1974, on 28 May in Bari (in the "heel" of Italy, Apulia)with the Bari Province Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michele Marvulli and on 2 August in Lanciano (in the Abruzzo region of central Italy) with the Youth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly, with the composer as soloist. Aldo Ciccolini performed the Concerto in C (no longer Partita ) for the first time with the RAI Rome Symphony Orchestra conducted by Günther Neuhold in Rome on 12 December 1987.
The conductor Massimo Filippo Antongiulio Maria Freccia was born on 19 September, 1906 in the Tuscan village of Valdibure, Italy. He died at the grand old age of 98 in December 2004. His mother from an aristocratic Pistoian family. In the late 1930s, he found the Cuban orchestra a poor ensemble, but trained it skilfully and was appointed its music director. "A reticent man of immense charm, he came from a patrician and wealthy background and counted royalty and aristocrats among his friends." (Telegraph obituary).
He published a memoir in 1990, The Sounds of Memory.
Ivan Moravec
Ivan Moravec (1930 - 2015), a Czech pianist, met the composer Bohuslav Martinů in Italy in June 1957. He had gone there thanks to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who had invited the young pianist to his master classes in Arezzo.
"Michelangeli came to Prague to play a concert in the Rudolfinum of which I remember almost every note [20 May 1960]. He played on a Czech Petrof piano which he then took to Rome where he played for the Pope.
"I was invited to his performance course in Arezzo. It lasted a month, but actually I met with Michelangeli only three times; I played for him one Mozart sonata, a group of Debussy preludes, and the third sonata of Sergey Prokofiev. He limited himself to just a few comments and then said: 'This young man doesn't need lessons - he only needs to play.'
'That was very nice of him and it's true that later - because in three meetings you can hardly grasp the greatness of such a phenomenal player as Michelangeli - I continued my studies by learning from his recordings. Source (2003)
'What is characteristic of Michelangeli's performance? It is actually the fact that he does not change the tempo at all. Rusalka [= Ondine] unfolds almost metronomically for him. And he manages to create that feeling of timelessness again with the help of a completely mechanical tempo. It is interesting that Michelangeli does not even care much about making the melody of Ondine, which is one of the most beautiful melodies in piano literature, feel romantic. It is almost as if he played the piece coldly. Coldly in terms of feeling, modulating, amplifying, weakening the melody and in terms of the elasticity of the rhythm.
'The accompaniment is actually written in a rhombus rhythm [Doprovod je napsán vlastně v rumbovém rytmu]. And now: the pianist approaches it and has to create the illusion of perfect fogginess with the rhombus rhythm. Well, Michelangeli's result is incredible. When we consider that he played it on our Petrof, which – let's say – does not have as smooth an action as the old Bechsteins had, then it is truly a creative act of the first order.' Source (2016)
Of the Ravel concerto: 'Michelangeli bets on absolute smoothness and fluidity and achieves it. It is interesting that if one looks at the musical notation, on the second page of the cadenza, where Ravel begins to write out the melody in trills – where he tries to replace the age-old handicap of the piano, which consists in the rapid decay of notes, with something that would create a better and more complete illusion of the duration of the note, that is, a trill – then Michelangeli, at the seams between the individual notes on which Ravel wrote the trill, does not jump a fifth up or a third down according to the notation, but fills in the fifth jump with added notes. [tak Michelangeli na švech mezi jednotlivými tóny, na nichž Ravel napsal trylek, neskáče podle zápisu třeba kvintu nahoru nebo tercii dolů, ale vyplní kvintový skok přidanými notami.] It is actually a small intervention in Ravel's text, but completely in the spirit of this cadenza. And Michelangeli does it with the utmost nobility.'
Maurizio Pollini
'Maurizio Pollini's progression in the Chopin competition was linear, without a single lapse, without a single moment of fatigue or uncertainty. His performances of four of the most difficult Etudes (Op. 25, No. 10 and No. 11, Op. 10, No. 1 and No. 10) were the measure of a technical mastery that had few equals in the world, and his performance of three Mazurkas (Op. 33, No. 3, Op. 50, No. 3 and Op. 59, No. 3) demonstrated a capacity for analyzing microstructures that would later be confirmed by his performances of Schoenberg's piano works. It's enough, after all, to listen to the Scherzo from the Sonata Op. 35, performed in the competition without any of those small precautions that even distinguished pianists like Benedetti Michelangeli prudently resort to, so as not to mess up, and without any of those small flaws that even great virtuosos, like Rachmaninov, fall into, who disregard caution, to understand what impression he should make, on the jury even before the audience, the Italian
boy […] a sort of eighteen-year-old archangel who epitomised the wisdom of two generations of performers.'
Piero Rattalino, Concorso di Varsavia 1960 cit., p. 48
Of the Sonata, Op. 35, in addition to the live recording made in March 1960
during the Warsaw Competition, which has been reissued several times on CD, there is another very beautiful recording, also live, made some time after Warsaw, but also in 1960, during a recital Pollini gave in Dubrovnik. This was released on vinyl in 1982 by the Milanese label Movimento Musica, along with the Ballade Op. 23 and the Berceuse Op. 57. Of the Dubrovnik Op. 35, there is also a CD transfer released by the Suite label.
(Jerzy Miziołek)
'His fingerings should be studied in depth (they have not been destroyed). A need for perfection. He loved it. This singular demon inhabited a man of Franciscan character who could recite verses by D'Annunzio or Dante from memory.'
Paolo Andrea Mettel
Stephen McIntyre, an Australian pianist from Melbourne, recalls a year spent under the tutelage of Michelangeli (plus masterclasses a a summer school in Sienna over a three-month period). "I don't think he knew my name at the end of it! He was an impossible teacher, but a wonderful player. One afternoon he played 25 Scarlatti sonatas, one after the other, none of which he had recorded. That was a lesson in how to play Scarlatti." The Age Melbourne, 26 February 1999.
Although Pollini doesn't specify what exactly he learned about trills from ABM, sources elsewhere suggest it might be the fingering 1423, to sustain a long trillo.
Benedetti Michelangeli's "specialty" was chain trills (ah!, the trills of the second movement in Beethoven's Concerto, Op. 73... those "incredible trills of 'his' Ravel Concerto, linked together as in an unreal glissando, just to give an unparalleled example of his virtuosity," as L. Pinzauti writes). Piero Rattalino, p.20f.
When he was 18 years old, pianist Maurizio Pollini (5 January 1942 – 23 March 2024) studied with Benedetti Michelangeli for six months in the early 1960s, going first to Bolzano where ABM resided, then also to the villa near Arezzo where all the students of ABM were staying. Pollini had won the 1960 sixth International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw [VI Międzynarodowy Konkurs Pianistyczny im. Fryderyka Chopina was held from 22 February to 13 March 1960] ; he was the youngest of 89 entrants and the first non-Slav to win in the history of the competition. Arthur Rubinstein, leading the jury, declared "that boy can play the piano better than any of us". After this successes, Pollini did not perform for one year. He limited his concertising in the 1960s to study, broadening his musical experience and expanding his pianistic repertoire. This led to erroneous rumours that he had become a recluse. He recorded Chopin's First Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Paul Kletzki for EMI. He then had a "crisis of confidence", as Peter Andry described it, when the Philharmonia offered him a concert series.
'Benedetti-Michelangeli agreed on the sole condition that Mr. Pollini suspend his concert career for a few years. Their co-operation lasted six months, during which time Mr. Pollini took six lessons with the master.' (Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina/ Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Warsaw)
In the early 1960s, Michelangeli's physical problems did not let him go, so he played mainly in Milan, where he presented himself to the audience only in the spring of 1961 with his specific "temperament full of lyricism" and the same virtuosity, which, according to Italian critics, is rivaled only by Vladimir Horowitz, and a rich program: the sonata op. 111 by L. v. Beethoven was heard, Chopin's etudes, accompanied by orchestral works by Ferenc Liszt: Concerto No. 1 and Totentanz with conductor Rafael Kubelík and the RAI Orchestra from Turin.
In December of that year he played for students of the music school in Foggia, but at the end of the second piece of the program, Scarlatti's Esercizi per clavicembalo, he got up from the piano, looking very pale, and lay down on a sofa, fainting. According to the doctors who were present in the hall and who immediately came running, it was poisoning that caused cramps in his hands. After this incident, Michelangeli moved to Florence, to the Colle di Bellosguardo, for a while to rest.
1962 is the year of the centenary of the death of Claude Debussy, so in Milan, after several months of silence, Michelangeli will perform concerts by Franz Joseph Haydn with the conductor Ettore Gracis, and in the second part he will remain on stage alone to play Children's corner and two series of Images by this French composer, who was one of his most usual in terms of the choice of concert programs. According to critic Franco Abbiati, in his interpretation Michelangeli "made understandable what is most ethereal, abstract, radiant in Debussy's music: the extreme dilution of color, light, which nevertheless becomes more and more brilliant".
„ha reso intelligibile ciò che di più etero, astratto, lucente è nella musica di Debussy: l’estrema rarefazione del colore, della luce, che pure diventano sempre più brillanti.“ Zdroj: ABBIATI, Franco Corriere della Sera, 18. 4. 1962.
Another result of this effort by Italian television is the construction of the Rai-TV theatre in Naples, which is to have a large auditorium with open spaces, an organ and a thousand seats. It is Michelangeli who is invited as a soloist to the ceremonial opening of this theatre. He will play Mozart's concerto in B flat major with the orchestra, and the rest of the concert is dedicated to Neapolitan symphonic music of the 17th century (composers Alessandro Scarlatti and Marco Enrico Bossi). Corriere della Sera, 7. 3. 1963
1961
12 January 1961, Bologna, Italy
Bach-Busoni, Toccata in re minore; D. Scarlatti, Cinque esercizi per gravicembalo; Beethoven, Sonata n. 32 op. 111; Chopin, Fantasia op. 49; Berceuse op. 57; Studio op. 10; Mompou, Suburbis, Suite; Liszt, Polonaise n. 2.
April 28, 1961: Turin, Italy (Radio Broadcast )
· Liszt: Piano Concerto No.1 in E-flat major, S.124
· Liszt: Totentanz (Paraphrase on Dies Irae for Piano & Orchestra), S.126ii
– Rafael Kubelik / Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della RAI
12 May, 1961: BBC’s Maida Vale Studios, London, England (Radio Broadcast)
· Scarlatti: Three Sonatas
o K.11 in C minor
o K.332 in B-flat major
o K.172 in B-flat major
· Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.32 in C minor, Op.111
– BBC Legends BBCL 4128-2
23 May 1961, Bologna
Beethoven, Quinta sinfonia op. 67; Liszt, Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra n. 1; Totentanz; Händel, Messia, Alleluja; Stravinskij, Sinfonia dei salmi.
Dean Dixon, direttore d’orchestra; Gaetano Riccitelli, maestro del coro.
31 May 1961, Teatro Communale, Firenze; with Charles Mackerras (who was between two visits to Czechoslovakia where he had been the first non-Czech to conduct an opera by Janaček, Katya Kabanova, in Brno). Michelangeli performed the Liszt first concerto magnificently but it was a stormy occasion. Because Charles was the only foreigner, Michelangeli bypassed him at rehearsal and complained directly to the members of the orchestra who answered him back. He was not satisfied with the triangle solo at the start of the scherzo and said so to the player. There was a fearful row, it almost came to blows; the whole orchestra joined it and in the end Michelangeli stormed out, swearing he would never play again with them. At the concert with Mackerras in Milan for which he was booked, he simply did not turn up. [Nancy Phelan, 1987]
A few days later, 'a packed [Florentine] theatre greeted ABM in a recital of Bach-Busoni, Beethoven, Chopin, Mompou and Liszt. A 15-minute ovation was unproductive of an encore, but after the Liszt Polonaise No. 2, what more could he say with just a piano?'
Frank Chapman, Musical America (July 1961)
The Second Polonaise (S223 in E major) used to be something of a warhorse: Busoni played it (and saddled it with much too long a cadenza, however interesting!), and Rachmaninov and Grainger both recorded it. A little less hackneyed nowadays, it remains a good foil for its companion, and its ingredients of two splendid themes and some really musical pyrotechnical variations make it a compelling concert-piece. (Leslie Howard)
Corriere della Sera (26.3.61): "Don Carlos" will inaugurate the Maggio Musicale 1961, which will present, among its highlights, the world premiere of Mercante di Venezia, "The Merchant of Venice" by Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco. In the concert field, the greatest attraction is the name of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who had promised to return to Florence only when the Comunale reopened its doors; now that it has reopened, like a perfect gentleman he returns.
Firenze, 5 June. Corriere reports:
'Last night, during the first half of a concert by pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, the alarming revelation of a bomb that could explode in the theatre reached the switchboard at the municipal theatre. The voice was male; the tone was conspiratorial!
Although it was more logical to think it was a stupid prank than an impending danger, the theatre management informed the police, and Police Commissioner Dr. Romanelli, who was attending the concert, immediately ordered a thorough search of all the premises. Fortunately, the search was unnecessary. The audience noticed nothing.
Monday/Tuesday 12/13 June 1961, Teatro alla Scala, Milan: recital.
On 5 December 1961, La Stampa reported: 'The orchestra hurls insults at maestro Celibidache. The sensational incident in Rome over a rebuke during rehearsals - In protest, the renowned conductor canceled the concert. Rome, December 4. The renowned Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache left Rome, declaring he would never set foot in Rome's concert halls again. During Saturday's rehearsals at the Foro Italico, the RAI orchestra reacted to his remark with harsh words and the throwing of scores and music stands. Today, organised by a youth music association, a Schumann celebratory concert was scheduled to take place with Celibidache and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli as soloist. Instead, the audience found maestro Massimo Freccia on the podium with another programme because Benedetti Michelangeli, out of solidarity with Celibidache, refused to touch the keyboard.'
Benedetti Michelangeli in Florence for a period of rest (Corriere 9.12.61)
Florence, December 8, night. The pianist, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, is in complete repose in a villa on the Bellosguardo hill. As is known, the pianist was performing a concert in the Auditorium of the Giordano Music High School in Foggia when he was struck by an illness caused by food poisoning. The maestro will now rest until early January: during these days he will reschedule all his artistic engagements.
'For one year, above Moncalieri, he lived in a villa generously equipped for teaching:
fifteen students had access to fifteen grand pianos of the famous Petrov brand, for which ABM had a predilection.' [Cord Garben]
La Stampa, 11 & 24 December 1961
With Benedetti Michelangeli's students in the villa that will host them this winter.
The beautiful, ancient villa of Santa Brigida (in the Turin hills), hidden among the plane trees on the hill above Moncalieri, welcomed a group of unusual guests last night. They are young people from all over the world, considered true talents in their respective countries in the field of concert piano. A few hours earlier, a cleaner had polished to a mirror finish the brass plaque affixed near the gate, which reads: <International School for Pianists - Maestro: Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli>. The illustrious musician is expected towards the end of the week for the inauguration of the winter advanced courses. He will spend the winter in this villa, comforted by music and his students, and by the surrounding Alps, whose sight seems to captivate him like a Chopin nocturne. His students are already settled in. Everything in the old house has been arranged according to the maestro's taste: the furniture is sober and sturdy; the mirrors look like they belonged to Costantino Nigra or Cavour, the chandeliers illuminate a nineteenth-century atmosphere that perfectly matches the notes emanating from the fifteen pianos. Scarlatti, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms are family friends.
Perhaps the only oddity of our time is the spirit of the young students. They are all excellent, gifted with technique and sensitivity; many have a comprehensive resume (conservatory diplomas, successes, acclaimed concerts, competition wins); but despite their commitment and vocation, their appearance retains the carefree attitude of their age. People tend to consider them eighteenth-century mannequins, precious but timeless. An hour spent in their company is enough to disprove this opinion. They are serious, open, and friendly young people; they joke readily even though they dedicate much of their day to studying. French-Algerian representative Nicole Afriat is very modern. After graduating from the Paris Conservatory, she gave concerts in the same city and in North Africa: she doesn't disdain the songs of the chansonniers, even if her infinite artistic possibilities included the opportunity to win a Viotti Competition. Italian-American Renato Premezzi is 26 years old. He was already teaching at the New York Conservatory. He had the brilliant humility to start over after hearing some records by Benedetti Michelangeli. "He's a miracle man," he said. "I had to bend over backwards to get a scholarship and rush to the Maestro." This is the opinion all the students have for the great Italian musician: Dutchman Yantina De Smitd, Canadian Paolina O'Connor, Chinese Irene Pang, Englishman Anthony Lindsay, Argentinean Lia Demasi, and the other guests. Only two are missing: Danish Peter Westcnholz (who will arrive at Christmas) and Yugoslavian Vladimiro Kopan, who is serving in the military in Zagreb.
Some are already famous in their countries, like Pietro Maranca, a child prodigy from Brazil, son of Italian emigrants: he is seventeen, and gave his first concert at nine. Interviews, praise, "tourntes," money. At fourteen, he abandoned everything, after the most important concert of his career: "I read the criticisms, the undeserved praise. I had a terrible crisis: 'I was just a shock musician.'" He left for Italy: "Benedetti Michelangeli was the only card I could play to become a real musician." He started over again, and will have to do so for another three or four years: "I don't care about giving concerts. Success doesn't pay for one's discontent." Marta Argerich (Argentine, long black hair, a face and figure ideal for film) also already has an enviable past as a concert performer. She is only twenty years old. In 1957 she won the Busoni and Geneva prizes. Like Maranca, she abandoned to study with Michelangeli: "I'm too young, success scares me. You always travel, you see so many people who don't interest you, and a girl alone feels that inside her there is so much cold." Thoughtfully, she adds: « All this is dangerous, it makes you lose your balance. That's why I stopped: I hope, by studying, to find peace again ».
1962
New Concert in the Vatican in the presence of Pope John XXIII with Gianandrea Gavazzeni. Numerous recordings for RAI-TV in Turin.
April 28, 1962: Aula della Benedizione, Vatican City State (Radio Broadcast | FLAC)
· Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54
· Liszt: Totentanz (Paraphrase on Dies Irae for Piano & Orchestra), S.126ii
– Gianandrea Gavazzeni / Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI di Roma
– Aura 978-3-86562-779-7. Schumann also on Warner 0 825646 154883, and in another copy (incorrectly announced 1955-12-23).
La Stampa 12 June 1962: Under the heading Martha Argerich At the Circolo degli Artisti, the newspaper announces this evening at 9:15 pm, there will be a concert—by invitation—by pianist Renato Premezzi of the International Academy of Maestro Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Thursday evening, at the same time, there will be a concert by another student of the Academy, Argentine pianist Martha Argerich, who will play music by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Barber, and Ravel. These two concerts take place at the end of the annual course of the International Academy for Pianists « Maestro Arturo Benedetti Mlchelangeli »
Prague Spring
"We will broadcast another important Prague Spring concert on Wednesday, May 20, 1962. The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prague will perform, along with two foreign guests: Yugoslav conductor Oskar Danon and Italian piano virtuoso Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli. The following pieces will be performed: Beethoven's III. Symphony "Eroica", Ravel's piano concerto and Paul Hindemith, Symfonické metamorfózy na témata C. M. von Webera."
In the end Jakov Flier (USSR) was soloist in Franz Liszt: II. klavírní koncert A dur, and the concert took place on the 30th.
"Benedetti-Michelangeli will perform for the second time at this year's Prague Spring on Saturday, June 2 at the House of Artists (Scarlatti, Beethoven, Debussy, Chopin). His solo recital will be broadcast by Czechoslovak Radio on the Czechoslovakia II channel."
Československý Rozhlas a Televise, 28 May 1962
But despite these tantalising announcements...
"This year, the Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli has been invited to perform (for the third time). He is an artist who is one of the first of the first. He was originally supposed to play Ravel's piano concerto, but in one of his letters to the festival office he wrote that he had begun to re-study the piece after a long illness, but that he was unable to bring it to the perfection that would be appropriate for the Prague Spring. He is asking for a change in the programme - because he wants to bring only the most perfect performances to this festival. Such an apology from an artist of Michelangeli's stature is, in a sense, a gratifying compliment."
Mladý Svět, duben-červen 1962 (IV/13-25)1962-05-21
Benedetti Michelangeli seems to have cancelled all appearances at the festival of 1962 as the festival.cz/konzerty archive has no mention of him. Saturday 6 June was changed to
a baroque concert of Bach and Handel (and some Mozart) at the Letohrádek Belveder (Belvedere Summer Palace).
16 June 1962 Bologna
Galuppi, Sonata in si; Beethoven, Sonata op. 2 n. 3; Debussy, Images (5 brani); Chopin, Andante spianato e Grande Polonaise brillante op. 22.
21 September, 1962 (also December) in Turin, an all-Chopin recital - RAI Studios. Issued on CD by Music & Arts. 'These appear to be the 1962 Italian radio recordings made in Turin/ Treviso.' (amazon comment). There is also an Opus Arte DVD: 'Filtered through technology unable to register the finer details, he could possibly be much older than his [42] years, but he could equally have found the elixir of youth, for there is something of the callow young student, Goethe’s Werther maybe, to his body frame.' (Christopher Howell)
Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise in E-Flat Major, Op. 22
Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23
Mazurka No. 20 in D-Flat Major, Op. 30, No. 3
Scherzo No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 31
Mazurka No. 25 in B Minor, Op. 33, No. 4
Waltz No. 2 in A-Flat Major, Op. 34, No. 1 'Valse Brillante'
*Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35 'Funeral March' (not on CD)
Fantasie in F Minor, Op. 49
Berceuse in D-Flat Major, Op. 57
Mazurka No. 47 in A Minor, Op. 68, No. 2
Waltz No. 9 in A-Flat Major, Op. 69, No. 1 'L'Adieu'
Waltz No. 18 in E-Flat Major, Op. posthumous, B. 133
'One of the many anecdotes told about Michelangeli comes to mind: before a performance of the first book of Debussy's Préludes [for RAI 1962], he is in the hall rehearsing, and shy as he is, he forbids anyone from listening; but an enthusiast wants to steal the legendary performer's "secrets" at all costs, bribes a theatre usher and hides, crouched between two rows of seats for two hours, the duration of the rehearsal. During all this time, the unaware Michelangeli does nothing but let his hands fall on the first chord of the tenth prelude, "La cathedral engloutie," searching for the right weight, a precise timbre; having perfected this last detail, satisfied, he leaves, leaving the intruder helpless and empty-handed; only the final act, the concert, the recording, contains the definitive set of his choices.' Giorgio Pugliaro, La Stampa (12.12.87)
1963
*Rome Auditorium Pio Wednesday 3 April 1963 5:30 pm
Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Otmar Mága director
Scarlatti A. Concerto No. 2 in C minor for strings and basso continuo
Schumann Symphony No. 4 in D minor op. 120
Mozart Concerto No. 15 in B flat major for piano and orchestra K. 450
1 June 1963 Bologna
Cherubini, Anacreonte, Ouverture; Mozart, Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra K. 450; Schumann, Quarta sinfonia op. 120.
Ettore Gracis, direttore d’orchestra.
RAI film in Brescia of ABM playing Debussy's Images (14 mins) LINK
Sunday 17 November 1963, Teatro alla Scala with Nino Sanzogno (was this ABM's lastest and final concert here?)
Ildebrando Pizzetti, CONCERTO DELL'ESTATE
Franck's Symphonic Variations
Giorgio Federico Ghedini, MUSICA NOTTURNA
Grieg, Piano Concerto
Emerging gradually from his cocoon in 1964 Michelangeli once again tested international musical waters, venturing behind the Iron Curtain for a tour of the Soviet Union. "What strikes one is the precision of each movement, of each tone, of each nuance," wrote Rostislav Zdobnov, a music critic and director of the Glinka Museum in Moscow. "If you close your eyes, you forget you are in a concert hall; you might think you are listening to a superbly engineered recording in which no errors are possible. This is amazing. But this is the art of the intellect as distinct from the art of spontaneous creation on the stage..."
1964
First and only tour of the Soviet Union, with triumphant concerts at the Moscow Conservatory. On June 22nd, he celebrated twenty-five years of teaching with a concert at the Teatro Grande in Brescia: thus was born the "Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli" International Piano Festival, which was extended to Bergamo the following year and which saw the Maestro participate until 1968
6 February 1964, Bologna
Casella, Serenata; Mozart, Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra K. 271; Franck, Variazioni sinfoniche per pianoforte e orchestra; Čajkovskij, Romeo e Giulietta, Ouverture fantasia.
Francesco Caracciolo, direttore d’orchestra.
18 March 1964, Auditorio Pio, Rome
Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia
conductor: Franco Caracciolo
Mozart Symphony No. 31 in D major K. 297 "Pariser-Symphonie"
Mozart Concerto No. 25 in C major for piano and orchestra K. 503
Ghedini Concerto grosso in F for five wind instruments and strings
Franck Variations symphoniques, in F sharp minor, for piano and orchestra
20 April 1964 = last time in Bologna??
Leo, Sinfonia in sol minore; Mozart, Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra op. 503; Franck, Variazioni sinfoniche per pianoforte e orchestra; Čajkovskij, Romeo e Giulietta, Ouverture.
Giampiero Taverna, direttore d’orchestra.
June 1964
Corriere della Sera (26 December 1964) reports filming of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. in a concert at the Teatro Grande in Brescia in June: Beethoven Op.111 and Haydn concerto with Gasparo da Salò Chamber Orchestra and Agostino Orizzio.
Source: Luca Rasca (Pinterest)
Chopin's Berceuse
'He had teachers like Paolo Chimeri and Giovanni Anfossi, who hailed from the sunset boulevard of Romanticism.'
ABM's training had taken place in the provinces, in contact with a decadent culture. And in particular with Anfossi, the piano teacher of the girls of Milan's upper classes at the time, Michelangeli had learned even salon nuances. He loved music boxes, and had a collection of them. In addition to his astonishing performances of the most difficult compositions, he loved works written by composers for children, such as Debussy's "Boite à joujoux" (The Toy Box).
When dealing with a strange hybrid like Chopin's Berceuse, which blends the genres of lullaby and variation, Michelangeli does something unprecedented, and for some, incomprehensible. See the 1962 recording. He transforms the pastel tonality of Chopin's piece with excessive rubato, dilates passages, and, according to some, lets the lyrical delicacy of the composition slip away. He invents a little monster, which some still neither understand nor want to understand. Si inventa un piccolo mostro, che alcuni ancora non capiscono né vogliono capire.
Berceuse in D flat major, Op.57: Turin, 21 September 1962 (listed as December on YT?)
Bruno Giurati
USSR, Soviet Union 1964
Friday 22 and Wedneday 27 May, 1964, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory
Sunday, 31 May, 1964, Great Hall, Leningrad/St Petersburg:
Bach-Busoni, Chaconne
Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 3 in C major, Op. 2 No. 3
Debussy
"Images"; L'isle joyeuse, L. 106
L'isle joyeuse, was composed in 1904. It is assumed that the painting The Embarkation for Cythera by Jean-Antoine Watteau served as inspiration for the piece, with Debussy reimagining a group's journey to the island considered Aphrodite's birthplace, and their subsequent ecstatic unions of love upon arrival.
2 June, 1964, Great Hall, Leningrad/St Petersburg:
Scarlatti D., Five Sonatas
Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
Chopin, Three Mazurkas; Fantasy; Berceuse in D-flat major, Op. 57; Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31
4 June 4, 1964 – Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Arvid Jansons, Beethoven "Emperor" (the Latvian conductor was father of conductor Mariss Jansons)
On Monday 18 May 1964, Michelangeli flew to Russia, where he was to play ten concerts (some reports say 6 with two being orchestral concerts conducted by Kirill Kondrashin, Beethoven's "Emperor" and Franck's Symphonic Variations [Gregor Tassie, 2009]). The first recital was in the hall of the Moscow Conservatory, where he played Bach-Busoni, Beethoven and Debussy.
When asked by a journalist how he thought the tour in Russia went, Michelangeli replied “it seems to be going well. It is a special audience: for them music is like bread”.
Corriere della Sera, 22. a 26. 5. 1964
"What amazes us is the precision of every movement, every sound, every nuance," wrote Rostislav Zdobnov, director of the Glinka Museum. Grigori Kogan noted in Sovietskaya Muzika: "We have not heard such pianistic mastery since the days of Joseph Hofmann!"
In Izvestija, published on 30 May, the famous pianist and teacher Heinrich Neuhaus (1888 – 10 October 1964) - whose pupils included Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels - wrote:
"... Benedetti-Michelangeli turned out to be a truly top-class pianist, next to whom only a few rare and isolated individuals can be placed. ...
First of all, we must mention the unheard-of perfection of his performance, a perfection that does not allow for any accidents, momentary hesitation, any deviations from the ideal of performance that he once recognized, established and developed through enormous selfless labor. Perfection, harmony in everything - in the general concept of the work, in technique, in sound, in the smallest detail, as well as in the whole... His music resembles a marble sculpture, dazzlingly perfect, destined to stand for centuries without change, as if not subject to the laws of time, its contradictions and vicissitudes...
Gregor Tassie, in his biography of Kondrashin, quotes reviews of the orchestral concerts with ABM where one heard for the first time 'articulation of tone, coupled with a crystal clear range of chromatic expression, and triple notes and quarter notes not heard before!' Kondrashin was astonished at the Italian's ritualistic preparation. In the morning rehearsal, Michelangeli would be taxing and impatient, knowing precisely what he wanted; if one fulfilled what he sought after, there would be no more problems; frequently, it is the soloist to proves to be the hindrance. Some hours prior to their concert, Kondrashin found the Italian maestro trying once more to find the elusive note. He persisted, and at last, having found the required opening, little time was left for him to return to the hotel and change for the evening. The conductor waited, and waited until the last possible moment; and then Michelangeli returned as played as only a god can.
A Russian correspondent has written that Yakov Flier (pianist and teacher), who took third place in the Queen Elizabeth Brussels competition of 1938 remembered Michelangeli well. In 1964, when ABM was on tour in Moscow and Leningrad, he wrote in an article published in the newspaper Pravda:
OUTSTANDING PIANIST
Having learned about the arrival of the famous Italian pianist, I remembered the distant year of 1938 and the first International Piano Competition in Brussels. Having played the first round programme, I went into the hall to listen to the other contestants. Several routine, everyday performances of the obligatory programme, and, finally, a wonderful inspired performance... A serious, especially focused young man commanded the wary hall - it was seventeen-year-old Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. A little time passed, and loud, well-deserved fame came to him.
And here Michelangeli is in Moscow. Bach's Chaconne in Busoni's arrangement, Beethoven's Third Sonata - it was amazing! The highest beauty, simplicity, rare sincerity - these are, perhaps, the most precious qualities of this pianist.
This is what captivated me twenty-five years ago. But if then it was a triumph of youthful intuition, now it is a victory of high intellect. Yes, to achieve such heights of performance, one needs not only enormous talent, but also long years of deep reflection, joyful and, perhaps, painful experiences and, of course, enormous work.
Высочайшая красота, простота, редкая искренность — вот, может быть, самые драгоценные качества этого пианиста.
Именно это и покорило меня двадцать пять лет назад. Но если тогда было торжество юношеской интуиции, то сейчас это победа высокого интеллекта. Да, чтобы добиться таких высот исполнительства, нужен не только огромный талант, но и долгие годы глубоких раздумий, радостных и, может быть, мучительных переживаний и уж, конечно, огромнейшего труда.
Our guest, bidding farewell to the grateful Moscow public, played Beethoven's Fifth Concerto and Franck's "Symphonic Variations". The warm, lyrical sides of Beethoven's concerto, its plasticity - this is what especially inspired the pianist in this work, and not the proud, solemn symphonism emphasised by many great musicians. Franck's "Symphonic Variations" sounded like an excited, poetic story, performed with real artistic inspiration. Our fair listeners appreciated the Italian pianist at his true worth and, I have no doubt, will be very happy to meet him again in Moscow.
Pravda, 21 june 1964
This article is also published in a book dedicated to Flier (exists in a paperback version and in pdf format.)
22 June 1964, Teatro Grande, Brescia. Celebrates his silver anniversary of teaching (le sue nozze d'argento con l'insegnamento) with a triumphant recital, reports Mario Cervi inCorriere della Sera 23.6.64. Watch ABM in Beethoven No.32 in C minor, Op.111
'The man is too well-known for you not to know that he is forty-four years old, with straight, thick brown hair without a single streak of gray, and a strong, agile physique. Not a hint of pathetic fatigue, therefore, in this silver anniversary. But when I asked him if this was the exact date, Benedetti Michelangeli shrugged his shoulders in one of his evasive gestures and reiterated in a quiet, cold voice: "I'm celebrating my twenty-fifth year as a tenured teacher. But I had already given lessons before, in Italy and abroad, for example in Budapest."
And here we immediately begin to understand why Benedetti Michelangeli so often seems strange, both to the people and to state bureaucracy. He changes the rules of the game, alters the points of reference and measures we've always been accustomed to.
I asked him of this return to Brescia was emotional for him. The question wasn't original, I realise. But I knew that Benedetti Michelangelo hadn't set foot in his city for years, at least not to stay. And frankly, I hadn't found a better question. He made a vague gesture, as if Brescia were a remote polar paradise.
"They say I'm from Brescia," he commented wearily, "but I never come to Brescia. I'm leaving again tomorrow." It seemed as if he really didn't care about the International Piano Festival, or Brescia, or even his students. Snobbery? Or modesty? (...) it's not true that he's so indifferent to the call of his city; nearby, in Bornato, he has a villa.'
Some unusual notes on Michelangeli's teaching methods can be found in a memoir by Carlo Maria Dominici, his student in the Rabbi Valley cabin in the 1960s. Michelangeli would ask Dominici to play the same piece on a different piano (there were several in the room), so as to instantly adapt the sound to the piece. "One day," Dominici recounts, "during a lesson in my room, the Maestro showed up with a candle and turned off the light. I didn't understand. I could barely see. 'Play,' he said to me. “Maestro, I can’t see!” I replied. “You don’t have to see, you have to hear. There are good pianists who are blind and play very well,” he insisted. “You have to be able to play even without seeing.” I began to think he was crazy.
(Bruno Giurati)
Michelangeli recalls Kraków 1955...
How different are the Slavs in musicality, receptive power, and concentration! And Michelangeli, but only because he is with a friend who was present at the time, recalls the success he had in Kraków in 1955 [during his time as judge for the Chopin Piano Competition, when he also played concerts], in a former parish cinema transformed into a concert hall, when the police cordon deployed to defend it was broken, and two thousand more people entered, so that the audience took on an almost threatening air. But throughout the recital the silence was inhuman, and at the end the delirium was shocking. That was the time when Michelangeli, deeply moved, repeated almost the entire concert as an encore.
It's not the style of this shy and nervous man, however, to recall triumphs. What he remembers most about Kraków is the piano adventure. There was one in the hall, brought from Warsaw, with Blüthner written on it, but it was absolutely disastrous. So to find a decent one, a few hours before the concert, he had to go from house to house. "It was freezing cold, I was still a bit of a 'wrecker' because I was recovering from tuberculosis, the pianos in homes, including that of a former Chopin Prize winner, were all disastrous, and here I was again in the hall, desperate. 'My God, what do I do?' I asked my friend. 'You have to play,' was the reply. So I rolled up my sleeves, took courage, and crawled under the piano to play the role of mechanic. I worked for at least four hours, and the piano lasted the entire concert, including the encores, then died for good."
. . . . .
Benedetti Michelangeli reads poets (Catullus and Propertius usually follow him on his travels), but fortunately he doesn't express himself like one. When he hears, for example, someone calling him "a keyboard wizard," he snorts: "Bullshit, wizards do everything with a baton, while I'm someone who gets bored with work," and adds: "Playing means above all effort, great effort, aching arms and hands, and even calluses where cyclists have them." And this is a constant discomfort. He recalls that when, having heard him play as a child, they showered him with compliments—"What a good boy, what golden hands," he once replied to some moved ladies: "You should rather compliment my bottom."
Otherwise, he also enjoys telling how this year in Arezzo [1961], where he holds a summer school, he won the Bistecca (steak) competition. He presented five, having personally selected the animal (a red Maremma beef), as well as the cut, the grill, and the aromatic or resinous woods for the fire. (He enjoys cooking, and he's a good risotto expert.)
Reminiscences of Camilla Cederna, L' Espresso, 24 December 1961, who mentions that anyone close enough will catch the scene of roses from his fazzoletto.
This contrasts with comments by Bruno Giurato (April 2018). 'Michelangeli was not an intellectual. He was not a particularly voracious reader. He often quoted D'Annunzio ("The Poet would have said/The Poet would have done"), and he evoked Jacopone da Todi. He read Mickey Mouse (Topolino): before a demanding concert, he was often found in his hotel room, lying in bed late with a Disney comic book in hand. He was a specialist in complex composers, such as Chopin and Debussy, which require a vast knowledge of the performer, but he evidently arrived at them his own way. Once again, difficult to understand, and unfathomable.'