1975 | Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli

"His concert activities gradually diminished, but his fame had now taken on the proportions of a myth and each time he performed in public it was an event that made the headlines."

1975

Angelo Fabbrini, Michelangeli's trusted piano technician, worked with him from 1975 to 1990.

In 1975 and 1976 Michelangeli limited his concert performances outside Italy, cancelling most concerts at the last minute and thus being criticized and accused of "snobbery", but Michelangeli had already told the journalist Silvio Bertoldi a few years earlier: "They say I want to be a star, that I don't keep my commitments, but the truth is that I only play when I feel good and there is no contract in the world that could force me to perform. If I don't feel good, I can't give the best of myself that I would really like to: the audience has a right to the best. If I don't play when I'm not feeling good, it's only out of respect for the audience. I'm not made of iron. I suffered years due to inflammation of the nerves in my right hand, which limited me for several years. I suffered from lung attacks, but when I had to, I played even with a fever. I played every day in Milan while my father was dying in Brescia. How can anyone call that “starry mannerisms”?” Since the pianist left Italy, he has escaped the media’s attention and no one knows where he is or how to contact him, as if he refuses to meet anyone. Silvio Bertoldi continues his essay on Michelangeli by quoting some of his sentences: “Playing is not just a profession, but a way of life, for which it is not enough to have willpower and natural talent. Above all, a great spirit of sacrifice is needed. Being a musician does not mean dressing up to dress up as a penguin and present yourself to an applauding audience, but it is something that goes beyond all that and requires continuous effort and monstrous work. Otherwise, one will not become a musician, but a well-inflated bubble for a few applauses that will last only a few seasons, a sparkler that will go out in the dark.”

Corriere della Sera, 20. 8. 1976; Katia Vendrame

Evidence of this artist’s behaviour can be found in the events at a concert in Paris in 1978: at this performance he played Ballades op. 10 by the German composer Johannes Brahms, which accompanied him in almost all concerts in those years, and Beethoven’s third sonata. Then, before he got to Andante spianato and grande Polonaise brillante by Fryderyk Chopin, he left the concert because he was cold.

Corriere della Sera, 13. 11. 1978; Katia Vendrame

January 1975: Johannes Church, Thun, Switzerland (Studio Recordings | Stereo)

– EMI –

· Schumann: Carnaval (Scènes Mignonnes sur Quatre Notes), Op.9

➢ ∞ | (1975-01-15to21) | ø | M

– Warner 0 825646 154883

– EMI Italiana 7243 5 67041 2

· Schumann: Album for the Young, Op.68

o 37. Sailor’s Song

o 38. Wintertime I

o 39. Wintertime II

➢ ∞ | (1975-01-22to24) | ø | M

– Warner 0 825646 154883

– EMI Italiana 7243 5 67041 2

January 1975: Johannes Church, Thun, Switzerland (Studio Recordings | Stereo)

– EMI –

· Haydn: Piano Concerto No.11 in D major, Hob.XVIII:11

· Haydn: Piano Concerto No.4 in G major, Hob.XVIII:4

– Edmond de Stoutz / Züricher Kammerorchester

➢ ∞ | (1975-01-22to24) | ø | M

– Warner 0 825646 154883

March 17, 1975: Bern, Switzerland (Radio Broadcast | AAC192)

· Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.12 in A-flat major, Op.26

· Schubert: Piano Sonata No.4 in A minor, D.537 (Op.164)

· Debussy: Hommage à Rameau (Images, Book I No.2)

· Debussy: Reflets dans l’eau (Images, Book I No.1)

· Debussy: Cloches à travers les feuilles (Images, Book II No.1)

The Recording That Never Was

Michelangeli & Kleiber - 'this nitroglycerin mixture', about to record the "Emperor" by "the Dutch Composer', as AMB called him, referring to Beethoven's ancestry [Cord Garben, who reports almost unbelievable shenanigans about one piano, a Bechstein: 'The distances between the ebony sections were too narrow for the Maestro's strong fingers to find room', and he required all the black keys be sanded laterally to create more space between them for the his fingers. This actually happened the following night, and even before the average citizen had gone to get his breakfast rolls, the Maestro's instrument
was transported to the private broadcaster "Freies Berlin" for the recording, due to begin began at 10 a.m. Which it didn't!... See p.53ff.]

Since 1973, months and months of work had gone on to connect Kleiber and ABM for a recording of Beethoven's Emperor with the Berlin Radio SO. The work took place in Sender Fries Berlin, Haus des Rundfunks, Masurenallee. On 16 December 1975, Michelangeli joined the orchestra for a 2-5pm session; the final session ran from 2-5 in the 17th. All rehearsals were recorded (producer Cord Garben), as was the piano test and the first movement with piano. The team stayed at Berlin's Hotel Schweizer Hof. Late on the night before the recording was due to take place, Kleiber summoned Garben. He made an astonishing demand: he wanted the contents of his pocket score, replete with red marking - towards an adventuresome, refreshing and new performance of the work - , to be entered in the players' parts overnight before 10:00am. Garben was appalled but managed to get a team together. When Michelangeli saw the score in the morning, his face darkened: this was nothing like what they had done two years earlier. Very quickly there was no communication between the two. AMB began consulting directly with the concertmasters Koji Toyoda and Hans Maile and principal cellist Georg Donderer. This went on all day. Ettore Gracis had once told Kleiber that there was nothing conspiratorial, this was just how Michelangeli worked. The second day finished miserably and then next morning. Garben learned that the conductor had checked out of his hotel overnight. Two decades later, Kleiber admitted to Garben that rethink might have been at fault.

Charles Barber, Corresponding with Carlos: a biography of Carlos Kleiber

Perio Rattalino mentions that there is also a recording of the performance fo Cesar Franck's Symphonic Vsriations made on 13 May, 1975, in Zurich under Erich Leinsdorf: 'This recording, made without the consent of the heirs, cannot be released for another fifty years.'

Thursday 29 May, 1975, Municipal House – Smetana Hall, Prague

Josef Boháč: Fragment for a large symphony orchestra
Robert Schumann: Concerto in A minor for piano and orchestra, Op. 54
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto in B flat major for piano and orchestra, Ks 450
Leoš Janáček: Symfonietta

Saturday, 31 May 1975, Rudolfinum – Dvořák Hall, Prague

Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata in A flat major, Op. 26
Franz Schubert: Sonata in A minor, Op. 164
Fryderyk Chopin: Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35
Maurice Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit (Kašpar noci)

June 11, 1975: Vienna, Austria (Radio Broadcast | FLAC)

– Vienna Festival –

· Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54

– Moshe Atzmon / Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Massive publicity, followed by massive cancellations, preceded a scheduled tour of North America in 1977, where he was to play in New York, Chicago, Toronto, Miami, Montreal, Dallas, Cleveland, Washington and Los Angeles. Though by then his duties to Michelangeli were already history, Leiser had no regrets. "He changed managers like he changed shirts. In spite of the obstacles I was faced with as his agent, it was a great experience and a privilege to have known him. He could be the devil incarnate at times, but he was also an angel: soft spoken, charming and generous. But it was always drama with him…" (John Bell Young)

1976

'To our great surprise, after just a few weeks [after the "Emperor' fiasco], the telexes came alive, transmitting the latest repertoire proposals and the contractual terms. They did not come from Lugano, but from distant Rome, where ABM's lawyer, Giuseppe Attolico, was resident. Until the battle for the signing of a new contract entered the final phase,
only the President of the DG, Roland Kommerell, communicated with the lawyer.

ABM was seriously intending to record a series of Beethoven's first and last sonatas.
Regrettably, the Sonata Op. 111, for which I had personally placed great hopes, had already been promised to Maurizio Pollini. Another project included Franz Schubert's Sonata in G major and the two posthumous Sonatas in A minor and B-flat major.' [Cord Garben]

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli returns to the stage: he will give a recital on 12 August [1976] in Menton as part of the twenty-seventh International Chamber Music Festival, which opened on July 25th by another celebrated pianist, the American Byron Janis, and will conclude on the 28th of next month. During the official festival, thirteen concerts will be held in the churchyard of the Church of San Michele, just under two kilometres from the border with Ventimiglia.

(Corriere 30 July 1976)

On Christmas Eve, 1976, the South African newspaper had an article on AMB which included this curious statement:

Daar is mense wat vertel dat Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli sy groot vernuf as pianis van die duiwel self ontvang het.

„Jy laat my musiek soveel mooier klink," het Maurice Ravel een keer gesê nadat hy na Michelangeli geluister het. Die pianis was toe maar vyftien jaar oud."

There are those who say that Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli received his great talent as a pianist from the devil himself.

"You make my music sound so much more beautiful," Maurice Ravel once said after listening to Michelangeli. The pianist was only fifteen years old at the time."

As Ravel died in 1937, this would have been in 1935 if true.

1977 Sala Nervi, Vatican

In 1977, after eleven years of silence in Italy, Michelangeli finally appeared in the Vatican, where he played a concert for the Red Cross. During his stay in the Vatican, he did not agree to any photoshoots or interviews, nor to recordings for the Italian media, exactly as he had decided in 1969. In the papal residence, in the Auditorium Pierluigi Nervi from 1971 (after the first acoustic tests in the hall he declared: "I have never found a hall that is so large and yet has good acoustics"), on a Steinway piano that he brought from Switzerland, Michelangeli played for seven thousand people, among others, Sonata No. 2 by Chopin and Ballade op. 10 by Brahms and the first book of Preludes by Debussy.

Corriere della Sera, 29. 4. 1977. [See also box below]

April 29, 1977: Aula Nervi, Vatican City State (Radio Broadcast )

· Brahms: Four Ballades, Op.10

· Chopin: Piano Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.35

· Debussy: 12 Preludes (Book I)

Deutsche Grammophon

At the invitation of Deutsche Grammophon, Michelangeli returned to the recording studio in the late ‘70s. The project comprised a series of albums devoted to his core repertoire: music by Debussy, Chopin, Schubert, Beethoven and Brahms. His producer Cord Garben recalls with amusement the session for the Debussy Preludes. "He played the whole program and then asked for the corrections, which he made immediately. That was all! Preparation time in the studio took about three days, especially for mechanical adjustments on his two instruments. He could never decide which one to use. He had no interest in the editing procedure and authorized me to make the edits wherever I wanted them. Once he accepted the hall, he accepted the advice of his engineer." (John Bell Young)

When recording Michelangeli was a stickler for privacy. Not only was the studio itself off limits to non-essential personnel, but so was the entire building. With the exception of his producer, an engineer, a technician, a personal assistant and a single record company representative, he refused to allow anyone to get near him. "Even attendance by DG’s chief executives was strictly forbidden," notes Garben.

In 1975 he refused to give Deutsche Grammophon permission to issue his recording, with Carlos Kleiber, of the Emperor Concerto. Here Guilini fared better. "The approval of the Emperor [with Giulini]" says Garben, "took place in his jeep while driving over the mountains of Lugano." Evidently this offered Michelangeli one way of speeding things up. "And he approved the Beethoven 3rd in his home on a cheap radio recorder," protests Garben, "while his expensive equipment stood only five meters away."

Mr. J. BISTRITZKY
THE ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN
INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION
SHALOM TOWER, TEL AVIL, ISRAEL

Thank you very much for your phone call of September 19th.
As promised, I officially confirm that Maestro Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli has accepted with great pleasure to serve on the Jury of the Arthur Rubinstein Competition to be held in April 1977.
It is understood that the Maestro will only participate in the last two rounds (10th and 11th, 13th and 14th). We would like to arrive on April 7th and depart on Saturday, April 16th.
I am delighted that you can make a piano available to the Maestro during his stay in Tel Aviv, in a room at the Conservatory or elsewhere, if you prefer. You mentioned a new piano at the Conservatory, and is that correct? I have a great favor to ask of you: Could you reserve for us a gold medal bearing the likeness of Maestro Rubinstein,
similar to the one he gave to Maestro Michelangeli. We will pay you for it when we come. The reason is very simple: there was a robbery in our house in Lugano, and among the stolen items was this medal, and the Maestro is very sad not to have it anymore. Thank you in advance. (Marie-José Gros Dubois, 21 September 1976)

Members of the international jury for April 1977 included: Arthur Rubinstein, Guido Agosti (Italy), Jan Ekier (Poland), Jacques Fevrier (France), Rudolf Firkusny (U.S.A.), Akiko Iguchi (Japan), Nikita Magaloff (Switzerland). The winner was German pianist Gerhard Oppitz (born 5 February 1953, Frauenau).

Pura

On 1st August 1979 he went to live in Pura, in the rented villa that some time later he was to leave to another great pianist, Vladimir Ashkenazy. He then moved to a house immersed in the shade of the chestnut groves, just a few hundred metres down the road from the previous house; here he spent the last years of his life, far from the hue and cry and the crowds, in almost Franciscan simplicity. The suffering caused by his precarious health was alleviated by the care and attention of Anne-MarieJosé Gros Dubois, who was also his faithful secretary.

'It remained the owner's secret why he preferred a farm overlooking the enchanting Lake Lugano, devoid of a panoramic view and surrounded by a dense forest, without the possibility of contemplating the water and the distant mountain peaks. But it wasn't just the forest of tall beech trees that hid its secrets. Would a visitor to this isolated world have ever imagined that the walls of the garage that bordered the land towards the road hid a red monster [his Ferrari] who, with its roar, was just waiting for the right moment to bring even the last dreamer back to reality?' [Cord Garben, p.4]

'The first time I was his guest from the 26th of May to 1st June 1975. The house where he lived and worked inspired calm and naturalness. The garden surrounding the house was truly an impeccable fragment of nature. There were trees and a lawn, without excessive intervention of man with his artificial “arrangements”. The house stood on a gentle slope, and so the windows of the Maestro’s study, situated on the ground floor, directly overlooked the garden. There were three pianos in the study. The Maestro gave me permission to try them. One of them was particularly beautiful in its sonorous fullness. Never before, or after, have I had the opportunity of finding an instrument of this kind, or the pleasure of playing it; not even in the concert halls in numerous countries where I have performed.' Lidia Kozubek

Vatican

La Stampa article on Vatican recital

On 29 April 1977, he held a concert in the Vatican in honor of Pope Paul VI, to benefit the Italian Red Cross, on the initiative of Vittoria Leone.

He has set some conditions: no interviews, unnumbered seats, and street clothes will be required. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who had sworn never to set foot in Italy again, returns for a concert. He couldn't say no to the personal invitation extended to him by Mrs. Vittoria Leone from the Quirinale. The keyboard monk was seduced by the first citizen of the Republic.

Today, after a nine-year absence, Benedetti Michelangeli returns for a concert. Not exactly in his homeland, but in the Vatican. All proceeds will go entirely to the Red Cross. Paul VI has "graciously" granted permission to perform in the Sala Nerviana, which seats 6,912. The concert is scheduled for Friday, April 29, at 8:30 pm. The program: Brahms, Ballad Op. 10; Chopin, Sonata in B-flat minor Op. 35; Debussy, 12 Preludes. The news of Michelangeli's return, unanimously considered the world's number one pianist, has left Rome breathless. First, a frantic rush to book began, then adoring young music lovers stormed the box office. There are still a few tickets left (thirty, twenty, and ten thousand lire). A sold-out event is expected, with gross revenue exceeding €100 million, almost as if it were a Serie A match.

Meanwhile, the press office of the President of the Quirinale has announced the Maestro's conditions: a) Michelangeli will not grant interviews; b) his Roman hideout will not be revealed; e) the seats in the auditorium will not be numbered ("I hate having to face the same old hags who understand nothing about music but pretend to faint as soon as I touch the piano"); d) formal attire will be required, not evening wear. The man who embodies the myth of refined elegance on the keyboard has only two suits in his wardrobe, one winter, the other summer; he also owns a tailcoat (designed by Prandoni) that has followed him from concert to concert for eighteen years, and whose lining he has changed dozens of times.

Teaching was his vocation: he taught in Bergamo, Arezzo, Bolzano, Merano. Of course, he didn't keep timetables, like the lowest of bureaucrats. He gave lessons when inspiration struck. At the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, the students waited patiently for him all day; The Maestro could arrive at any moment; today, tomorrow, or perhaps the day after. In the rarefied world Benedetti Michelangeli lives in, human reasons and needs are incomprehensible. No one has ever been able to understand whether his extreme reserve is due to shyness or hides a hint of amusement. A music critic, who had driven all the way to Val Camonica to listen to him, was dragged along at 200 miles an hour in his Ferrari, eyes wide open, to watch the sunrise over Lake Trasimeno.

Michelangeli lives in Brusino, on Lake Lugano. He is 58 years old. After 27 years of marriage, he separated from Giuliana Guidetti. Now he is often seen alone at lunch at Pestalotti, an alcohol-free restaurant where you can eat for 1,500 lire. He always wears his suit and black sweater, from which his pale, lunar face peeks out. His temples have turned gray, and two deep wrinkles line his cheeks at the corners of his mouth. But his charm remains intact. His personality remains an enigma. Someone calculated that in three months he could earn enough to last him a lifetime. But what does money matter to him? He has never given more than thirty concerts a year.

Now he plays sparingly, and more engagements are cancelled than honoured. His recordings are extremely rare, even though, ironically, millions of his pirated records flood the global market. At his rare concerts, there's always the danger of a clandestine microphone. His fee is the highest in the music industry, but the penalties he has to pay every time he doesn't show up are extremely high. And if he's not in a state of grace, he doesn't play. The same goes for his recordings. He's never recognized himself in a record. He's terrified of leaving behind a recorded performance of anything less than his best. One of his students says: when you live in a myth, one wrong note in public drives you to suicide. His life hasn't changed. His world has become even more rarefied, if that's possible. He plays at night; at dawn, people see him walking exhausted along the lakeside. These days, as he always does when a concert date approaches, he's entered a state of anguished exaltation. He doesn't speak, he doesn't see anyone, he eats just enough to survive. He spends his days locked in a room with his magical Steinway, but without touching a key. He mentally reviews the score and taps time with his foot. At night he paces for hours, unable to sleep. He sinks into abysses of neurosis, the neurosis of virtuosity. People from all over the world are expected to come to the Rome concert on April 29th. But the question everyone is asking is: will Michelangeli be on stage that night?

Corrado Corradi, La Stampa 25.4.77

Les Collines d'Anacapri

"Les collines d'Anacapri" (The Hills of Anacapri) is the fifth piece in Debussy's first book of Préludes. Composed in 1909, it was inspired by the town of Anacapri, on the island of Capri in the Gulf of Naples.

The melody imitates bells and contains snippets of tarantella. Two Italian songs are quoted, a chanson populaire and a sultry love song. All these themes merge at the end before a short fanfare, marked lumineux, concludes the piece. One of my favourites.

1978

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, the Italian pianist, has cancelled his United States tour, which included recitals in Carnegie Hall on March 10 and 23. Those holding tickets for the latter can obtain refunds at the Carnegie Hall box office, 154 West 57th Street.

The New York Times (30 January 1978)

27-28 June 1978: Musikhalle, Hamburg, West Germany

Debussy: 12 Preludes (Book I)

Michelangeli recorded the first book of Debussy's Preludes for the first time in 1978 for Deutsche Grammophon with Cord Garben [see pp.75ff.] as producer: on this occasion he used two pianos: he played on one, and a wooden peg was installed in the other so that all the dampers did not touch the strings and the strings could vibrate freely. When playing Debussy, the effect of the so-called "Aeolian harp" was created: the strings of the second open piano vibrated freely due to acoustic resonance. Thanks to this effect, the interpretation in this recording achieves a rich sound, a drama that sometimes crumbles the form of the individual preludes. Probably to emphasize the resonance, Michelangeli gives space to pauses and breaths that invite the listener to listen to a distant, ineffable sound in the created silence (characteristic, for example, of Voiles or Le vent dans la plaine). Ce qu'a vu le vent.

But ABM wasn't very happy. So just a few years later, we agreed on a new recording scheduled for November 1985 in La-Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, without television, and this time with the aim of recording the two volumes of the Préludes.

ABM at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Hamburg, where he
always stayed in the same suite

11 November, 1978: Salle Pleyel, Paris, France (Radio Broadcast )

· Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.3 in C major, Op.2 No.3

· Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.11 in B-flat major, Op.22

· Brahms: Four Ballades, Op.10

This recital was supposed to have ended with Chopin’s Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise (Op.22), but Michelangeli didn’t play it because he was “too cold”! Sometimes labelled as 26 October. Indeed, Le Monde diplomatique carries an advert for the 26th and states that the recital is in aid of the National Committee for Leprosy.

Cesare Govi, recalling a brief friendship, wrote in Il Piccolo di Trieste 17 December 1978 under the heading "Only six records but many more voices and legends":

PARIS. Dev'essere tempo di comete, gente mia, state accorti. Qualcosa nell'aria mi sa di presagio, fausto o infausto non so. Un cielo parigino gonfio di nubi da temporale, anche sotto Natale, non è fuori-gioco; però che a promesse di tuoni e saette tenga fede il nevischio è da Fiandra o Baltico.

Il fulmine è caduto a Parigi mentre nevicava, e proprio sulla Sala Pleyel. Il concerto di Benedetti Michelangel è piombato atteso, ma non sperato. E s'è dissolto con profumo di rose come un'apparizione di padre Pio. Un concerto di Arturo Benedetti Michelangel è da anni anche fuori d'Italia un avvenimento da lontana epoca. Nelle regole del gioco è stato invece il piantar lì baracca e burattini, terminare il concerto dopo il primo pezzo. Non è la prima volta: adesso è stato il freddo della sala, le mani gelate non si sono alzate più sulla tastiera come un velo o un rifolo di vento.

Parigi ha incassato bene anche questa impennata d'umore, o di temperatura. Qualcuno ha parlato di ritorsione alla politica francese contro il vino italiano, altri a un'imbron-ciatura perché in quei giorni suonava, lì a Parigi, pure Poliini. Un ragazzo di 57 anni, da 41 primo e unico pianista del mondo, col mondo ai piedi, osannante anche Richter e a Gilels e adesso a Landquist, ma che fa sempre confrontarsi con lui, e a lui si riferisce, si può perdonare una bizza termica.

PARIS. It must be a time of comets, my people, be careful. Something in the air smells like omen, auspicious or inauspicious, I don't know. A Parisian sky swollen with storm clouds, even at Christmas, isn't out of the question; however, whether sleet lives up to the promise of thunder and lightning is something from Flanders or the Baltics.

The lightning struck in Paris while it was snowing, and right on the Pleyel Hall. Benedetti Michelangel's concert fell, expected but not hoped for. And it dissolved with the scent of roses like an apparition of Padre Pio. An Arturo Benedetti Michelangel concert has been an event from a distant past for years, even outside Italy. The rules of the game, however, were to pack up and end the concert after the first piece. It's not the first time: this time it was the cold of the hall, and the frozen hands no longer rose to the keyboard like a veil or a gust of wind.

Paris also took this sudden change in mood, or temperature, well. Some said it was retaliation for France's policy against Italian wine, others said it was a sulk because Poliini was also playing there in Paris at the time. A 57-year-old, for 41 years the world's first and only pianist, with the world at his feet, also praising Richter, Gilels, and now Landquist, but who always makes people compare him to him, and it's to him that one can forgive a temper tantrum.

So many stages and audiences in tailcoats and tuxedos all over the world, excuse me, but before the fantasy—

A puzzling section of anecdotes/legends:

Ma c'era il «qualcosa>> che critica e grossi intenditori scoprivano per la prima volta nei concerti del '46. Un «qualcosa>>> che s'affinava concerto via concerto, l'essenza medesima della Musica e mai sentita finora. «Quel» suono, ovvero quelle sonorità. Ché erano tante assie-mate sovrapposte mescolate fi-no a creare un suono unico. Spiate ai pedali, imboscate e congiure degli occhi per carpirne il segreto nella posatura delle mani e dentro lo strumento dopo i concerti. Niente.

Stavamo per credere a Cesare Tallone, l'accordatore - com'era - che andava sussurrando di miracoli «Ciro prega molto, è tutta grazia e provvidenza la sua musica».

Una notte di maggio a Ravenna dopo un trionfo - eran venuti coi barconi clandestini dalla Juogoslavia, i fans delle famiglie l'antiche dalmato-veneziane per sentirlo in Mozart e e. BenedettiMichelangeli ne fa una delle sue. Quegli sgarbini che gli chiuderanno i salotti più esclusivi d'Italia, ma gliene apriranno altri in Europa. Snobba all'ultimo momento il pranzo dopoconcerto in suo onore in casa Ghigi: lo aspettano fino alle due una cinquantina fra i più bei nomi italiani. Alle quattro - della mattina Benedetti, Franco Gulli, Ettore Gracis, primo violino e direttore dell'orche stra del «Nuovo⟫, Cesare Tallone e io, i carabinieri ci troveranno seduti sui gradini di San Francesco - quattro uomini in frak e un ragazzo in blu - a bere. Quattro bottiglie di Barabera di Montalto Pavese scovato en un' osteria di via Baccerini, cinque calici rimediati in albergo.'

But there was the "something" that critics and connoisseurs discovered for the first time in the concerts of 1946. A "something" that was refined concert after concert, the very essence of Music and never heard before. "That" sound, or rather, those sonorities. Because they were many assembled, superimposed, mixed until they created a single sound. Peeping on the pedals, ambushes, and conspiracies of the eyes to steal the secret from the positioning of the hands and inside the instrument after the concerts. Nothing.

We were about to believe Cesare Tallone, the tuner—such as he was—who kept whispering of miracles: "Ciro prays a lot, his music is all grace and providence."

One May night in Ravenna, after a triumph—fans from the old Dalmatian-Venetian families had come on clandestine boats from Yugoslavia to hear him perform Mozart and the like—Benedetti-Michelangeli makes one of his own. Those sgarbini [rude people] who will close the most exclusive salons in Italy to him, but will open others for him in Europe. At the last minute, he snubs the post-concert lunch in his honor at Ghigi's house: about fifty of Italy's greatest names are waiting for him until two. At four in the morning—Benedetti, Franco Gulli, Ettore Gracis, first violin and director of the "Nuovo" orchestra, Cesare Tallone, and I—the Carabinieri will find us sitting on the steps of San Francesco—four men in tailcoats and a boy in blue—drinking. Four bottles of Barbera di Montalto Pavese found in a tavern on Via Baccerini, five glasses obtained from the hotel.

«Questa Barbera è la grazia e la provvidenza, ragazzi. Non scioglie solo le dita, va dritto in testa, non aiuta a concentrarsi, anzi ti sparpaglia intor no un sacco d'idee, t'ispira li per lì il modo di suonare in quel momento, quella frase; capisci all'improvviso un passo. un sentimento, un'intenzione dell'autore; Mozart, per esempio, non si riesce mai a capir-lo del tutto, c'è sempre un risvolto che l'ultima volta non c'era. Magari un passaggio che suona tutti i giorni da sei mesi». Tallone sentiva un po' blasfema quest'ingerenza del Barbera nelle cose dell'anima, e per esorcizzarla beveva. E' un grosso intenditore dei vini ver-so il lago d'Orta, Ghemma Воca Sizzano Bonarda. Si tiene una bottiglia in una mano e il bicchiere nell'altra. Così ci sor prese l'alba.

' "This Barbera is grace and providence, guys. It doesn't just loosen your fingers, it goes straight to your head, it doesn't help you concentrate, in fact it scatters a load of ideas around you, it inspires you on the spot the way to play at that moment, that phrase; you suddenly understand a passage, a feeling, an intention of the composer; Mozart, for example, you can never fully understand, there's always a twist that wasn't there the last time. Maybe a passage he's played every day for six months." Tallone felt this Barbera's interference in the things of the soul was a bit blasphemous, and to exorcise it he drank. He's a great connoisseur of the wines around Lake Orta, Ghemma Boca Sizzano Bonarda. He holds a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. That's how dawn surprised us.

'But Barbera, for Benedetto Michelangeli, must truly be a thing of the soul. I remember him sipping and then inhaling lightly while practicing Brahms's "Variations on a Theme of Paganini." Either the dazzling third variation was the work of God or the effect of the Barbera: and since there was a glass there on the piano and a bottle on a chair, I would have no doubts about the attribution.'

"More women than skeletons"

Finora nessuno ha smentito il bacio con cui una principessa di sangue reale, l'avrebbe aggredito durante una lezione, e l'implorazione oramai da un ciclopedia degli aneddoti «Ciro, Ciro, marry me». Scaррò е non la sposò. Sensibili pure le donne di casa Savoia, ma queste son dispeniere di facili glorie: vedi Maurizio Arena. Nascondevano più donne gli armadi degli alberghi dove passava Benedetti Michelangell che scheletri quelli dei castelli scozzesi. Una donna tedesca dopo una notte con lui avrebbe suo-nato a memoria la «Caduta di Varsavia» di Chopin, senza aver quasi mai toccato prima una tastiera: gli avrebbe poi regalato un castello in Tirolo.

So far, no one has denied the kiss with which a princess of royal blood allegedly attacked him during a lesson, and the now anecdotal plea, "Ciro, Ciro, marry me." He refused, and he did not marry her. The women of the House of Savoy were also sensitive, but they are dispensers of easy glory: see Maurizio Arena [Italian actor]. The closets of the hotels where Benedetti Michelangell stayed hid more women than those of Scottish castles. A German woman, after a night with him, allegedly played Chopin's "Fall of Warsaw" by heart, almost without ever having touched a keyboard before: she then gave him a castle in Tyrol.

PARIS, 11 November 1978

Marisa Bruni Tedeschi

In the late 1970s, Marisa Bruni Tedeschi had an affair with ABM, which lasted about a year and a half.

[For the full details of the affair, I refer you to her autobiography Mes chères filles, je vais vous raconter (2016). I have mostly tried to select passages - from the Italian translation (2017) - which reveal aspects of ABM's character and life.]

Signora Bruni Tedeschi first met AMB at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.

'I saw a poster advertising a concert by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Beethoven's Emperor. I didn't realise, at that moment, that I was about to experience the extraordinary adventure of my life.

[Possibly this concert with Sergiu Celibidache and the Orchestre Nationale de France, on 16 October 1974 in Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris.]

'After the concert, I went to say goodbye to him in his dressing room and invited him to our dinner [which she had arranged for Georg Solti who'd given a concert at the Salle Pleyel]. He couldn't; he had to leave for Japan at dawn. He didn't know what to say. I could feel his intense, almost desperate gaze. He picked up all the flowers he had and placed them in my arms. Then he took a bottle of perfume from his dressing table and handed it to me as if it were a jewel. I didn't know then that he had a passion for perfume, until the day I discovered he had a house full of it. It was Jean Patou's "Joy," with jasmine essence, my favourite too. Since then, every time I smell jasmine, I think of him, and also of Virginio who, by a strange coincidence, bought me the same perfume for my birthday. It was his last gift [her son, a photographer, died of HIV related symptoms

at the age of 46].

'Nothing was known about this piano genius. Everything was a mystery. He was born in Brescia, but who were his parents? Who had introduced him to music? A provincial teacher? In those days, there were no training courses abroad, no master classes. Yet, at eighteen, the boy entered the Geneva competition, the most difficult and prestigious, and won first prize. Thus began his international career.

'When I first heard him, I must have been about sixteen. He was as handsome as a Hollywood actor. With his little mustache, he could have rivaled Clark Gable or Charles Boyer. He was simply an archangel, and that's what I want to call him.

Archange [French] appeared in public with that slightly contemptuous air that was his throughout his life, and which made him even more fascinating.'

About two years later (she says elsewhere that ABM was aged 58 at the time)...

'He returned to Paris, to the Salle Pleyel. [1 December 1977 would seem to suit the chronology which is described as roughly two years later; another possible date is October 1978 or 11 November 1978 but at neither recital did he play Debussy; the latter was one on which ABM complained of cold.] His recital nearly got canceled because Archange complained of the cold. Then he played Debussy's Préludes, and they were enchanting.

My husband was in the United States. That morning I had asked my friend Alain Guillon, who worked at the Valmalète concert agency, if Archange would come to dinner at my place after the concert. Alain was sceptical. Archange rarely agreed. Then, after speaking with his secretary, he called me back to tell me that the maestro would be very happy to come. But be careful, he would only be eating plain rice.

'So we returned together, in my little FIAT, followed by his tuner, Marie José, his secretary, his lawyer from Zurich, Affolter, and **Nino Rota, who was passing through Paris [Italian composer, best known for his film scores for Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti, ( l gattopardo/ The Leopard’ and for Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet]. My mother, Alain, and Roland Bourdin, director of the Salle Pleyel, were also there. When we sat down to dinner, they served him a plate of rice, but he refused it; he wanted to eat like the others. He was cheerful, drank a lot of champagne, smoked one cigarette after another, and left around five in the morning.

**Rota's 1955 opera Il cappello di paglia di Firenze ("The Florentine Straw Hat"), an adaptation of the play by Eugène Labiche, was presented by the Santa Fe Opera in 1977. He also wrote a piano concerto in C major (1960) for Michelangeli, at the pianist's request - but he never performed it.

'Two days later ABM had a concert in Grenoble. Afterwards there was a dinner with all the city's notables, but 'Archange, after a while, got fed up with all the questions they were asking him and said to me: "I've had enough. Let's go drink this champagne in my room."

'A few days later, I received a photograph of him at the piano, with a dedication: "To Marisola, forever."

The relationship developed; here she describes a meeting in Lugano -

'He took me to his house in Sanio, a country house far from town, because Archange liked to live where the roads ended. It was a modest house, a small country villa, with very little furniture, no paintings or books (apart from a Mickey Mouse collection), only a large studio on the garden level with three magnificent Steinway pianos. I was impressed by the fact that every flat surface was covered with medicines: bottles, boxes, syringes, eye drops, poultices, compresses, gauze. And hundreds of bottles of perfume.'

You may have notice the colour of Michelangeli's hands...

'For at least an hour, he had to immerse his hands in a basin of hay flowers (fleurs de foin), a remedy that he considered indispensable for maintaining the beauty of his snow-white hands.'

In the Italian edition:

E poi immergeva le mani in una bacinella con i fiori di fieno, per mantenere la bellezza delle sue mani di pianista.

'Later, in Paris, one evening at a restaurant, my husband said to me: “Listen, I'm not stupid, you disappear for days without giving any news. I might even think you have a lover, but I want to know who he is.” When I revealed the name, there was a moment of silence, then he said sweetly: “I understand.”

'That evening he summoned all his wisdom, like a man facing great danger, facing the wavering will of a woman in love, and he set me free. “Go, come, do what you want. I ask only one thing of you: don't leave your family. I'll be there for you when you need me, because that man will make you suffer.”

Ivan Drenikov (1945- ), a Bulgarian pianist and student. He studied with Panka Pelishek and Pancho Vladigerov in Sofia, and at the age of 18 he received third prize at the 1964 International Competition for Young Pianists "Ferruccio Busoni". Then he studied piano at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome, and attended courses with Michelangeli in Bergamo, Lugano and San Bernardo Rabbi from 1968. One source calims he was ABM's favourite pupil (information from various sources including Cronica Sătmăreană , 9 February 1986)

'Ivan never asked permission. He would arrive unannounced, make himself at home, and take possession of the pianos, without the maestro even protesting. No one played Liszt's Mephisto Waltz better than him. Even Archange admired him: "Ivan plays too fast, too fast, but he has good hands." Ivan and I became great friends. In Bulgaria he was one of the "people's artists" and often came to Paris, sent by the Party. His comings and goings were a bit mysterious.'

'One day we were in Sanio and Archange said to me, "Let's go to Rabbi." It was a small village in Tyrol, where he owned two chalets, obviously at the end of the road. A woman, Gemma, looked after them. We set off in her Range Rover. Archange loved driving; he'd even raced. He listened to the engine noise as if it were music, but he refused to stop for anything except petrol.

'When we arrived at the chalet, after an eight-month absence, a mass of mail was piled high: letters from friends, concert companies, music agents, parcels of gifts. I immediately looked for a letter opener, quite curious, but Archange approached me and said, "Want to see?" and threw everything into the fireplace.

'He was a man who loved to inspire enthusiasm in people, and then abandon them. He did the same with his great friends, who continued to write to him, but whom he no longer wanted to see.

He was strange; he told so many stories, I don't know why. He said he was alone in the world, without a family. But, in truth, he had had a wife, whom he never divorced, and who reappeared after his death. And then a brother, first violin in the Angelicum orchestra in Milan, whom I met at some concerts. And also a nephew who was making his debut as a conductor.

'But it became part of his character, at a certain point, to want to ruin the most beautiful things, like a child breaking his toys. He began to lie: "Don't call me for three days, I have to have appendicitis surgery.” In truth, he stayed at home, happy to have told me a lie.'

In an interview with Corriere della sera on the occasion of her 90 birthday, Marisa Bruni Tedeschi explained the end of the affair to Candida Morvillo:

How did it go with Michelangeli?

It lasted a year and a half. I called him 'my archangel.' When I think back, this is one of the things I would relive. I would reach him everywhere, disappear for days. When my husband asked me 'Who is he?' and I told him, there was a moment of silence, then he said, 'I understand you.'

Why did it end?

"Arturo had a rather eccentric personality. Whether it was friends or women, he would suddenly get bored of someone and leave them. He became unbearable, and one night, I left his mountain house, walked 16 kilometers through the woods, and left."

And to Antonio Sanfrancesco, 17 March, 2017 for Il Libraio:

“I would do it all again. It's no coincidence that I put Dante's phrase at the beginning of the chapter [of her autobiography]: ‘Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona’ Inferno V.103, (Love, which forgives no one loved to love i.e. "Love, which does not allow the loved one not to love back"). When I think of passionate love, I immediately think of Paolo and Francesca. All impossible passions are inexorably destined to end, and usually they always end badly.”

A Ivan Drenikov il mio migliore Augurio per la sua vita artistica. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli 1976
To Ivan Drenikov my best wishes for his artistic life. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli 1976

Source: Facebook Ivan Drenikov

1979

Moves to Pura, near Lugano. Recorded live in Vienna Beethoven's Concertos Nos. 1, 3,

and 5 for the DGG with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.

February 1, 1979: Musikverein, Vienna, Austria (TV Broadcast | Mp4697MB & DVD+R)

· Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37

· Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.5 in E-flat major, Op.73 (Emperor)

– Carlo Maria Giulini / Wiener Symphoniker

– Op.37 in a Mp4 file, Op.73 on a DVD which was originally marked “November 1979: Berlin”. Also another copy of Op.73 on VHS, which was correctly marked.

1 February, 1979: Musikverein, Vienna, Austria (Live Recording | Stereo)

– Deutsche Grammophon –

· Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37

· Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.5 in E-flat major, Op.73 (Emperor)

– Carlo Maria Giulini / Wiener Symphoniker

– Deutsche Grammophon 469 820-2. Cadenzas: L. van Beethoven.

'When in the mood for an Emperor concerto worthy of the handle, I often turn into ABM, live and characteristically imperious in Vienna. Richard Osborne found Michelangeli "all fluster and virtuoso glitter" at the time of LP issue (10/82) but I share the enthusiasm of Charlotte Gardner for the grip and definition of his phrasing as well as the sovereign personality of his immaculately conditioned instrument.'

(Peter Quantrill, Gramophone Awards issue, 2020)

September 15, 1979: Tonhalle, Zurich, Switzerland (Audience Recording | AAC192)

· Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.1 in C major, Op.15

· Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37

– Edmond de Stoutz / Zurich Chamber Orchestra

(Thursday 20 &) Friday, 21 September, 1979: Musikverein, Vienna, Austria

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.1 in C major, Op.15 (+ Symphonie Nr. 7 in A major, op. 92)

Carlo Maria Giulini / Wiener Symphoniker

Cadenzas: L. van Beethoven.

Cord Garben notes that the lavish floral arrangements altered the humidity and ABM didn't turn up ["The Maestro seemed to be indisposed"] for the final tech rehearsal on the the day (test for sound, cameras etc.), and that he had to sight-read the piano part.

'Contemporaries tell us that Beethoven's playing of this concerto was brilliant, and stirring, truculent even, rather than delicate; yet pianist of our own time, make him rather more urbane, radical imaginings playing just beneath the effortlessly polished surface. The big third cadenza (of the firt movement) - Tovey's bête noire, played with all the stops out. Scales roll like thunder, minor seconds glint with scarifying brilliance. Midway there is a terrific accelerando and chords black as judgement day; then a trill and a quirky, devil-may-care return to the dominating tune: Arturo Benedetti Eulenspiegel. This is exactly how Beethoven must have treated the solemn-browed cognoscenti of his day. I laughed out loud... The Largo is lucid, lyrical, very Italian. In the great solos, Michelangeli is clear-eyed, a trifle matter-of-fact. There is pathos, but he seems impatient with it. The finale snaps in, proud, expert, very exhilarating, and, by the end, very amusing, genuinely scherzando. I guarantee that 1980, will produce no more thrilling or controversial, Beethoven record and mentally set aside my Austrian Schillings. Meanwhile, in the upper rooms of the Musikverein the shade of Beethoven stirs with pleasure, prompted to recall again the time when he first dazzled and shocked Vienna with his tempestuous music.'

(Richard Osborne, 10/80 reviewing the Deutsche Grammophon recording)

But in September 1988, Stephen Plaistow wrote for Gramophone: I find him a more perplexing artist than ever. Perplexing because he likes to keep his musical personality well hidden – or at any rate, mysterious – behind the armour-plated magnificence of his playing. There is an intellectual froideur about his playing of Beethoven, which verges on the disdainful, and which is sometimes more than off-putting: it is hateful. It is as if we were asked to contemplate the jewelled machinery of his piano, playing as the offer of sufficient pleasure in itself. When the C major Concerto first appeared on LP, Richard Osborne was stirred by it. Two years later, however, he admitted that it hadn't worn well. [SP's view=] It is carved in marble, most of it, and with feeling so externalised and frozen that the effect is chilling. And the slow movement is really pretty awful.

In Algemeen Dagblad (19.2.81), Roel van der Leeuw:

Italian master pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was to record all of Beethoven's piano concertos for a series of televised concerts for DGG, together with the Wiener Symphoniker under the direction of Carlo Maria Giulini. Although Nos. 3 and 5 have already been recorded, the audience will not be able to hear anything more of the entire project than the first concerto, which has now been released, because Michelangeli vetoed the entire project. He is apparently very angry with the conductor, but although I have heard Giulini perform at a higher level, I still consider it not unlikely that the pianist was primarily ashamed of his own playing. It is sloppy, superficial, uncontrolled, and devoid of all poetry. A pity, because Michelangeli is rarely willing to let any of his often masterful playing be heard through concert or recording.

Cord Garben took ABM to the famous Café Leopold Hawelka at midnight for red wine after a Japanese meal. 'Those who work in the circle of a difficult person know no recreation; even the most cheerful atmosphere requires constant vigilance and presence of mind.

To my surprise, ABM didn't have much to say about the recording of the
Piano Concerto in C major. I waited in vain for a comment about the not always perfect correspondence between his rhythmically clear interpretation and the orchestra's performance, which was not always precise, even in and of itself.

But in this case, he would have behaved like his partner, the conductor [Carlo Maria Giulini], like a true gentleman.'

Not in Holland

Wednesday/Thursday 10/11 October 1979 were to be with Bernard Haitink/Concertgebouw (music by Hendrik Andriessen, Ricercare; Beethoven "Emperor" Concerto Op.73; Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 1. (Mozart, Violin Concerto No. 3 (K. 216) Jaap van Zweeden replacing ABM on Saturday 13th)

On Sunday 14th, Daniel Weyenberg replaced ABM for a recital at 8:15pm in the Groote Zaal of the Concertgebouw. Michelangeli's programme would have been: Beethoven Op.2/3 in C, Schumann Faschinsschwank aus Wien, Schubert A minor Sonata Op.164 [D 537], Chopin Fantasy Op.49 and Andante Spianato &etc. Concertdirectie G de Koos was the agent, the organisation started by a Hungarian emigré Dr Géza de Koos (who, among many other things, first brought Jorge Bolet to Europe in 1935)

4 October 1979, Algemeen Dagblad announces: The renowned Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli has canceled the concerts he was scheduled to give in Amsterdam next week with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The young Dutch violinist Jaap van Zweeden will perform in his place.

Hans Heg:

The Italian Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who was to perform in the Netherlands for the first time next week, has completed his tour. He was to play twice with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and give a recital in the International Piano Series. According to his impresario, he is ill and will not be able to perform for six months. With this, the piano phenomenon, who lives in Switzerland, has confirmed his illustrious reputation

Not so long ago, in Paris, he abandoned a concert because "his hands were too cold." There's also a story going around that elsewhere he refused to venture beyond the wings, as he didn't like the atmosphere in the hall.

The artistic director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra reports that every effort was made to accommodate Michelangeli 's wishes : he would be allowed to bring his own grand piano and his own staff; he would be allowed to rehearse at the Concertgebouw at any time; new orchestral material from Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto would be used by the Concertgebouw Orchestra, without notes from previous performances (a requirement Haitink agreed to meet), and three rehearsals would be held.

Michelangeli 's performance with the Concertgebouw Orchestra was not allowed to be broadcast on the radio, just as he also stipulated that no biographical information about him be distributed. This was duly followed up in the monthly magazine Preludium.

Despite all the fuss, it's a shame Michelangeli isn't coming to Amsterdam, because when he's not hampered by mental outbursts, he's still a phenomenal pianist.

De Telegraaf, 12 October 1979

However, I've never experienced so many cancellations, in such a short time, so early in the season," said Johanna Beek of Interartists Concert Management. As for pianist Michelangeli , she believes no one should have had any illusions. "He's the eternal canceler. If you sign him, you can practically assume you'll have to turn the audience away."

"And yet I will certainly try to bring Michelangeli to the Netherlands next year," says Concertgebouw Orchestra's artistic director, Dr. HJ van Royen, who personally engaged the piano virtuoso, aggressively. "He is a difficult, closed man, who actually flees the outside world. He lives in Lugano; but I don't know where yet. I spoke with him elsewhere and I got the impression that he genuinely appreciated playing with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, with Haitink. The exceptional conditions he attached to the performance — he would have his own grand piano;" bringing his own staff, and the Concertgebouw would have to be accessible to him day and night—we took that for granted. Because when he plays, it can be so exceptionally beautiful. The amount of the fee, the point I had actually been most worried about, was not too bad.

In his obituary of the pianist, Roland de Beer in De Volkskrant claims:

'A recital at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw [October 1979?] was cancelled some twenty years ago (in retrospect, it would probably have been his last) because he had spilled coffee on the contract at home.'

John Gruen interview, August 1977

The New York Times, 21 August 1977

Among the handful of the world's legendary pianists, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli is perhaps the most reclusive, enigmatic and obsessive. Living in voluntary exile and isolation in Lugano, Switzerland (for reasons he chooses not to divulge, he has refused to reside or perform in his native Italy for the past 10 years), Michelangeli makes infrequent appearances on the European concert stage. When he does perform, he avidly shuns all publicity and avoids any contact with either his fellow artists or an adoring public. Often given to cancelling concerts, Michelangeli seems law unto himself, following in the dictates of his feelings and moods.

The pianist has not appeared in America for some eight years. However, last June, in Vienna, this writer learned that Michelangeli had finally resolved to undertake his second tour of the United States and Canada next spring. Owing to the pianist's unpredictability, it seemed wise to talk to him about his career and plans well in advance.

In New York, there will be two Carnegie Hall recitals—on March 10 and 23, 1978. Michelangeli will also play in Boston, twice at Kennedy Center in Washington, Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Cleveland and Los Angeles. This is the itinerary, but one never knows about Michelangeli.

In Vienna, the pianist participated in the 18th International “Musikfest Der Wiener Conzerthausgesellschaft. ” Two concerts were announced. The first would feature the pianist in Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Leif Segerstam conducting the Austrian Radio Symphony. The second would be a solo recital. Both concerts were sold out weeks in advance, with stage seats being added for the solo concert of June 25. Some days prior to his appearance in the Tchaikovsky concerto, Michelangeli cancelled. The press announced that the pianist claimed illness. It added that Michelangeli suggested he be replaced by the young American pianist James Tocco, who had also participated in the festival one week earlier with an allChopin recital. Thus, on extreme short notice, Tocco stepped in and performed the Tchaikovsky concerto. All six Vienna newspapers gave Tocco rave reviews while severely chastizing Michelangeli for once more disappointing the public by what they deemed his capricious cancellations. A nervous festival management asked James Tocco to stand by as the replacement for Michelangeli's upcoming solo concert.

As it turned out, the Italian pianist arrived in Vienna on the morning of his scheduled performance. That same evening he played Beethoven's Sonata, Op. HI; Brahms's Ballades, Op. 10, and Debussy's Preludes, Book 1. The concert proved memorable in every way, confirming Michelangeli's reputation as one of the world's musical giants.

To obtain an interview with Michelangeli proved next to impossible. A young woman, acting as his private secretary, repeatedly announced that the pianist never spoke to reporters. Told that news had leaked out about his forthcoming U. S. tour, she quickly denied the report. However, some hours later, she telephoned to say that he would grant brief interview.

“Yes, I will come to America, but only on the condition that a suitable piano can be found for me,” said Michelangeli, who received me in the green room of the Vienna Concert Hall.

“You see, for me, playing on exactly the right instrument is everything. The fact is, the piano situation today is horrendous‐it's not a laughing matter. I've even given up traveling with my own piano, because all pianos, even the so‐called best, are of very poor quality. consider this a tragedy, and if this goes on, I may give up playing altogether. ”

Michelangeli chose to stand throughout our interview. A tall, lean man with dark, brooding eyes, a drooping moustache and shoulder‐length black hair, he spoke in a monotone, suggesting some deep and hidden depression. Standing rooted in one spot, he continually kept his eyes averted from his interviewer. Asked to speak on the subject of piano playing, Michelangeli kept silent for several minutes.

“The pianist should not express himself. The principal thing‐the most essential thing is to enter the spirit of the composer. It is what I tried to instill in all the pianists who have come to study with me. The trouble with today's younger pianists is their fixation on their own personality. This is a pitfall, and it will lead them nowhere. What's important is to abandon oneself to the thoughts and ideas of the man who conceived the music. To learn the literature is only the beginning. A pianist's true personality will emerge only when he has made deep contact with the composer. Only when the composer possesses the pianist can one think about making music. ”

How has Michelangeli achieved the tone and quality of his own playing?

“As a boy, I heard very great pianists perform, and they made an impression on me. But I've forgotten them all. I recall them occasionally, as in a dream. But very early on, I stopped listening to other pianists. I withdrew into myself and began studying on my own. To begin with, I did not like the piano at all. found it far too percussive. And so, studied the organ and the violin. Out of these studies, I found my own way of playing the piano. I discovered that the sounds made by the organ and the violin could be translated into pianistic terms. If you speak of my tone, then you must think not of the piano but of a combination of the violin and the organ. ”

Asked to comment on his refusal to play in Italy, Michelangeli grew visibly tense.

“It bores me to play in Italy. Of course, I've played there in the past, and I'm often asked to play there. But doesn't interest me in the least. I've not played in Italy for 10 years, and I need not tell you why. ”

[But in the mid 1960s an unfortunate incident with a former student nearly led to bankruptcy; a messy lawsuit ensued over a failed partnership and a disputed recording contract. The Italian courts, ignoring his cultural status, confiscated his home and property.]

Turning once more to his own playing, Michelangeli claimed that performing before audiences held no special magic for him.

“I do not play for others‐only for myself and in the service of the composer. It makes no difference to me whether there's an audience or not. When I sit at the keyboard, I am lost. And I think of what I play, and of the sound that comes forth, which is a product of the mind. Today's young musicians are afraid to think. They do everything in order not to think. Animals are better off. At least they possess instinct. Man has lost his instincts‐he has lost contact with himself. Before an artist can communicate anything, he must first face himself. He must know who he is. Only then can he prepare to make music!” ■