Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995)

1971​​

'What is surprising is not so much the number of concerts he performed in the second half of his career— Horowitz, in his entire life, played fewer than half of them—but the loss of the intellectual curiosity and lively spirit of cultural initiative that was evident in Benedetti Michelangeli in the 1950s. We know that in the 1960s, he studied Tchaikovsky's Concerto Op. 23 and Dvorák's Concerto, which he never performed in public. He did not
even expand his Mozart repertoire, on the occasion of the bicentenary of Mozart's death [1991].  After the age of thirty-five [1955], Benedetti Michelangeli re-studies the part of his repertoire that he decides not to abandon. '  (Piero Rattalino)

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Wednesday 24 February 1971, Neuchatel, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland

More than thirty years have passed since Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, then 19 years old, first came to La Chaux-de-Fonds, armed with the First Prize at the Geneva International Competition. Over the years, he has risen to the height of his career and fame. His appearance is each time an event and brings crowds of music lovers flocking: in Warsaw, in 1949, when he was called upon to play on the centenary of Chopin's death; in Salzburg, in 1965, where he was acclaimed by an audience of pianists who recognized him as a master. It is this prince of the keyboard that we will have the pleasure of hearing on Wednesday, February 24, at the Salle de Musique, as part of the tenth subscription concert. Beethoven and Debussy share the programme: from the former, two classical sonatas, and from the latter, Children's Corner, a suite of short pieces with evocative titles—which Debussy dedicated to his daughter Chouchou—and two series of Images for piano, which are like sketches with changing reflections. The composer of the "Ninth" and the composer of "Pelleas" have in common that they renewed the pianistic style. However, they are two worlds, two eras, two languages, contrasts that give this program a particular appeal, in keeping with the transcendent qualities of the performer. (L'impartial, 23 February 1971)

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Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli in Winterthur: Magier aus dem Elfenbeinturm (Musician from the Ivory Tower)

In a special concert organised by the Musikkollegium Winterthur, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli gave a piano recital on February 27th in the Stadthaussaal. The certainly not small hall was completely sold out; the concert ended with thunderous applause. Benedetti Michelangeli is, indeed, a unique musician. He affords himself (and is entitled to do so) to make no concessions to the audience regarding the programme. Although he included two Beethoven sonatas, they were none of the famous, "great," widely heard works, but rather works from his youth: the C major Sonata Op. 2 No. 3 from 1795 and the E-flat major Sonata Op. 7 from 1796/97. And in the second half, he played works by Debussy that weren't particularly concerned with outward impact: the charming, if at times somewhat brittle, movements of "Children's Corner" and "Images" (I and II). This, one could say, is the programme of someone who is aware of his irresistible appeal. And this time, too, it presented itself: complete fascination with an art of touch, with a highly differentiated playing culture that masters even the finest nuances, that possesses power but also the possibilities of almost ethereal sounds ("Reflets dans l'eau"!), with a pianistic technique that understands how to grasp the most difficult things as something completely self-evident and natural, with a musical interpretation (which is much more a complete penetration) that knows no pose, that with the assurance of good taste and profound knowledge of style imposes even peculiar, idiosyncratic interpretations (for example on Beethoven's rhythm) on the listener and that simply dispels even the slightest reservations or does not allow them to arise at all. It even encompasses musical humor: we have never heard «Golliwog’s Cakewalk» funnier, fresher, and more cheerful... The highest artistic sensitivity is combined in this music with fresh spontaneity; it never releases the listener from the spell it casts over them for a second.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 3 March 1971

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10 March, 1971: Salle Pleyel, Paris, France
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.3 in C major, Op.2 No.3; No.4 in E-flat major, Op.7
Debussy: Children’s Corner (Suite); Images (Book I & II)

Encore: Chopin: Waltz in E minor, Op.posth (B.56)

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Jacques Lonchampt in Le Monde (19.3.71): 

True to his appointment—unfaithful to his legend—Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli came to give an admirable recital at Pleyel, where the entire Parisian piano world was waiting for him. He entered slowly, silently, without a smile, a shadow on his aristocratic face as if wounded by melancholy.

With this adored and distant pianist, nothing is given to effect. This superb pianistic talent, the finest one could wish for, is neither cuddly nor complicit. [Ce superbe talent pianistique, le plus beau qu'on puisse souhaiter, n'est ni câlin ni complice] A simplicity without feverishness, a freedom unbound by all constraints as if it had never known them, the natural radiance of a sound without softness or hardness, of an infallible instinct.

If he plays two early Beethoven sonatas (the 3rd in C major and the 4th in E-flat), it's probably one too many, for we tire of these contrived formulas, of this rhetoric of transitions that enclose beautiful flashes of poetry and sentiment in a somewhat showy structure. But Benedetti Michelangeli erases awkwardness and grandiloquence, emphasizes the almost Schubertian gentleness or youthful brilliance, and gives this still somewhat tangled lyricism a richness of substance and a chivalrous elegance that is sometimes miraculous.

With Debussy, he penetrates to the most intimate part of his art. The clean line, filled with light, suddenly blurs into shimmering depths, the Serenade to the Doll unfolds in a child's sleep, your Snow dances in silent flakes; but the very traces of reality are erased in the two notebooks. of Images, where all that remains is the paradise of sound, the inner movement that combines the most delicate rubato with rhythmic accuracy, dreamy nonchalance with architectural splendor. An art that undoubtedly does not go beyond sonic voluptuousness, but, in its depths, borders on ecstasy. [Un art qui ne va sans doute pas au-delà de la volupté sonore, mais, dans les profondeurs de celle-ci, confine à l'extase]

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Prague Spring

'It is the 50th anniversary of the year that the Communist party was formed in this beautiful, sad city, and nobody is allowed to forget it. Red banners with the numerals 50 hang all over. Display windows have the figures as part of their design. Party meetings are in progress, and a very big congress is scheduled for next week.  Perhaps the Government made a special gesture toward national pride in its programming for the Prague Spring. It offers a once‐in‐a-lifetime chance to sample, on consecutive nights, the classics of the Czechoslovak repertory. Of Smetana there are “Libuse,” “Hubicka” and, of course, “The Bartered Bride.” Dvorak is represented by “The Jacobin,” “Rusalka” and “The Devil and Kate.” There are no fewer than five Janaček operas.'

(Harold Schonberg, The New York Times , 18.5.71)

Thursday, 20 May 1971, Municipal House – Smetana Hall, Prague

Mozart : Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 20 in D minor, KV 466
Gustav Mahler : Píseň o zemi /Das Lied von der Erde (Vera Soukupova & William Prybyl)
Czech Philharmonic & Vaclav Neumann

Monday, 24 May, 1971, Rudolfinum – Dvořák Hall, Prague

Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata in C major, Op. 2 No. 3; Sonata in E flat major, Op. 7
Claude Debussy: Children's corner, Images

When it was announced in the preliminary programme of the Prague Spring that Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli would be coming, tickets for at least two Smetana Halls and four Artists' Houses could have sold out within a few days. Such was the impression he left in Prague eleven years ago.

He took his Petrof grand piano with him on a tour of South Africa. When the piano returned to Genoa after a few months, the Master was surprised that the instrument had kept its tuning in the harsh conditions below deck. He also remembers the Easter concert in the Vatican before Pope John XXIII, where he played the Petrof grand piano. Here in Prague, he naturally also played the Petrof grand piano. And then the instrument was sent to Yugoslavia, where he gave concerts on 4 and 8 June 4 in Zagreb (now Croatia) and on 11 June in Belgrade (Serbia). 

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He has a Jaguar and loves high speeds. He maintains a strict diet, does not eat fatty meat, his favourite drink is red wine, he admires Chinese cuisine [I think the author may mean Japanese] and loves to cook. In European hotels, he demands a suite with a kitchenette. He promised to return to Prague early next year because he considers the Czech Philharmonic to be one of the best orchestras in the world and he enjoyed working with Václav Neumann. He appreciates the Prague audience, who do not go to concerts to see him, but to hear him!​

Svět v Obrazech 19.6.71

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'And so, Michelangeli's first concert performance this year already provided a lot of food for thought, offering a tempting comparison with Sviatoslav Richter as his stylistic counterpart. Isn't Richter an unpredictable element, a predatory river that takes with it even its limiting banks, never mind building no dams for itself? And isn't Michelangelo, on the other hand, the sum of rational discipline that achieves maximum beauty through harmonised and balanced proportions and proportionality of contrasts, their inconspicuous, but all the more surprisingly effective confrontation? Isn't Michelangeli the "heir" of neoclassicism and Richter the "heir" of expressionism?

But Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli surprised the people of Prague for the second time this year in his recital (24 May) and greatly problematised such ideas. Many listeners were very surprised, some even shocked, by his interpretation of the young, still “Haydnist” Beethoven sonatas (C major, Op. 2, No. 3; E flat major, Op. 17). It is true that in some respects the “neoclassical” approach was still maintained: flat dynamics in the manner of registration, again heightened by a color-differentiated stroke when leading the voices, and moderation in the choice of contrasting tempos. The fact that Michelangeli never drags out slow tempos too much is directly a condition of his colour-stroke technique, which requires moderate and sometimes completely minimal pedalling, in order for the richly nuanced scale from his flowing legatissimo to the sharpest staccatissimo to sound well. At tempos that are too slow, moderate pedalling would create a sonic void, thus disrupting the context of the semantic connections of the musical fabric; at tempos that are too fast, our ear would not be able to perceive the richness of the differentiated touch.

Dramaturgically, the choice of both sonatas as a counterpart to the second, Debussy-esque half of the evening cannot be disapproved of, because both sonatas contain much of the already quite modern sonic magic (especially the free movement in C major of the sonata and the trio part of the scherzo in E flat major of the sonata). However, it seems that Michelangeli heard this sonic quality with ears that were already too impressionistic, because Beethoven himself certainly could not have dreamed of the sonic refinement he used. However, he surprised his listeners even more with the breadth of his dynamic palette, which was completely unheard of in him up to that point...

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The performance of Debussy's Children's Corner and all six compositions (the first composition of the second series: "Cloches à travers les feuilles" was mistakenly omitted in the printed programme) of the cycle Images was, as one might expect, absolutely sovereign. (...). The richness, diversity and variability of the touch that the Italian master demonstrated here are not immediately heard: for example, the sound "caresses" of portamento octaves (Reflections in the Water), sound timbres and "timbre polyphony" (Bells penetrating the foliage), the "silky silvery" pianissimo stroke (A moon descends on the former temple), etc.

But even in Debussy, Michelangeli surprised in places. For example, in the fourth movement of the Children's Corner (The Snow Dances), the music suddenly flashed with a violent dramatic outburst, almost Janáček-like! There is no doubt that the great piano art of the Italian master has changed stylistically from how we knew it before. The artist, who had previously been so reserved in his expression, began to burst forth with hidden inner energy more than once. This was expressed in an interesting and visually external way in a kind of quasi-conductor-like, purely mimic integration of the metrical-rhythmic movement with additional gestures after the keys were sounded, which in an artist of such an unostentatious performance cannot be a conscious play for effect, but rather a spontaneous expression of the necessary discharge of accumulated energy.

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Well, Michelangeli surprised the Prague musical public with his hitherto unknown power and ability to seek contrasts and revive for the listener "old" music. In some cases, he did so with complete disregard for established and established stylistic norms, which certainly shocked some listeners. But no one can deny his powerful, enlivening creative power, because the listeners were filled with vivid and exciting impressions long after the final chord of his recital had sounded.

JAROSLAV JIRÁNEK, Hudební Rozhledy, 1971 (XXIV/1-12)1971 / No. 7​​​​​