The Art of Cancellation

Infamously, Benedetti Michelangeli canceled one recital in the mid–1980s because fresh air let into the hall had altered the tuning of the piano.   His obsessive fussiness and prickly gloom led even the high-strung Vladimir Horowitz to remark that Michelangeli was “the crazy one.”  But conductor Sergiu Celibidache didn’t blame the Italian pianist for canceling concerts, even with multiple pianos and technicians put at his disposal; for him, Michelangeli’s “sensitivity” was the price to pay for even the chance to witness a great artist’s revelations.

[Bradley Bamberger, Steinway website]

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In the 1980s, he performed music by only 13 composers, and in the last three years by only 7 composers (there were 35 in the 1940s).   But violinist Salvatore Accardo said that one evening he played to him "60 Scarlatti sonatas, just like that".

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In 1980 he visited Japan again (third time) but played only one of his five scheduled concerts.  He cancelled those four other concerts because he was not pleased with the condition of his own piano and claimed that none he tried in Japan was satisfactory.

(John Gillespie)

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Japanese Wikipedia has this (unsourced): His first visit to Japan in 1965 shocked (presumably in a pleasant way) the Japanese music world. He has visited Japan several times since, but only this first visit performed as scheduled. His subsequent cancellations have been met with turmoil. During his second visit in 1973, he changed concert dates and venues due to poor conditions, and some performances were canceled. He returned the following year in 1974 to make up for the previous year's performances.

'The only currency he knew was music.  When asked what the loss had been in a lawsuit, lost due to the cancellation of a tour of Japan, he thought, for a few seconds, and answered as if the question had never occurred to him: a disc.'  Brazilian pianist Arnaldo Cohen (Revista VivaMusica! June 1996)

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O fato Michelangeli é, na realidade, o fruto da imaginação de cada um. E cada qual carrega dentro de si um Arturo diferente. O “meu’ é assustador. Projetava seu autojulgamento, gerado nas cavernas do seu subconsciente, no grande público. Daí o pavor. Dele mesmo. A falha, sobrenado a técnica, representava um erro moral e passível de julgamento, para o qual a pena era a capital.

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The Michelangeli ‘fact’ is, in reality, the product of each person’s imagination. And each one carries within themselves a different Arturo. Mine is terrifying. He projected his self-judgment, born in the caverns of his subconscious, onto the general public. Hence the fear. Of himself. A flaw, surfacing above technique, represented a moral failing and was subject to judgment — for which the penalty was capital.

(Arnaldo Cohen)

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'He was capable of studying three bars for three hours. His music had to be immaculate, despite the awareness of that impossibility. He would walk on stage pale, like Dracula, and back to the coffin he would return after the ovation. He was like a brilliant living-dead.'

(Arnaldo Cohen)

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"If I remember correctly Christoph Eschenbach travelled behind Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli on a European tour in the sixties and jumped in for every concert ABM cancelled (which was most of them)."  (Joachim Reinhuber)

During his 1980 visit, he was dissatisfied with the condition of both pianos he brought with him to Japan, and was forced to use Yamaha pianos. He only performed one performance at NHK Hall, and all other performances were canceled. Even during the performance, he wore a coat due to the lack of heating, and Beethoven's Sonata No.28 in A major Op. 101 , originally scheduled for the second half of the programme, was not performed (Michelangeli never performed this piece publicly in his lifetime). As a result, Matsuoka Kikaku, the Japanese organisers of the tour, became angry and confiscated the two Steinways Michelangeli had brought with him, which worsened relations with Japan and resulted in a suspension of visits to Japan for some time.

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In his biography of Sergiu Celibidache, Klaus Umbach (1995) wrote: 'The Japanese hosts, for their part, were unwilling to discuss with the sensitive European his offer to bring a new Steinway from Ticino at his own expense: either he played, or his precious grand piano would be seized, citing breach of contract.

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'Unfazed by the fame of Benedetti Michelangelo, the Japanese placed him under arrest; he was not allowed to leave his hotel. His passport was confiscated. The piano tuner, a loyal servant of his master, Benedetti Michelangeli, notified the embassy. The money for the return flight arrived by telegram from Europe. ABM was able to fly out.

In his anger, he wrote Celibidache a letter stating that he would only perform with the Munich Philharmonic if they first banned all Japanese – there were three at the time – from the orchestra. Celibidache rightly found the request grotesque and indecent.

'Although both musicians performed together once more in March 1981, in the Congress Hall of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, performing Beethoven's C minor Concerto, a general hiatus lasting several years followed – "a painful, embarrassing, and incomprehensible interruption," according to Celibidache's later assessment.'

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Michelangeli and Japanese Fight Over Piano. The great pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli is involved in a dispute—likely to escalate into legal action—with a Japanese theatre impresario. The matter concerns a valuable piano belonging to the maestro, which was brought to Japan from Italy for a six-concert tour that was interrupted after the first. The newspaper Nikkei reports the matter, believing it knows the musician will appeal to the Tokyo District Court to order impresario Matsuoka Kikaku to return the piano and to pay him 13 million yen. In fact, Benedetti Michelangeli had already appealed to the same court last March, requesting an order for the return of the instrument, which Kikaku had seized. Kikaku felt he had been harmed by the fact that the pianist had performed only the first of six scheduled concerts; Michelangeli retorted that the fault lay with the impresario, who had treated the piano roughly, damaging its tuning. As the same newspaper reports, in conjunction with the pianist's planned lawsuit against Matsuoka Kikaku, Kikaku intends to sue the maestro himself, seeking 66 million yen in damages.

La Stampa 9 September 1981

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1980

After twelve years of absence, ABM held a concert in Italy: this was in Brescia, and it was a charity recital in memory of Pope Paul VI for Indochinese refugees in Thailand.

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In 1979, Vietnam had invaded Cambodia and overthrown the Khmer Rouge. Vietnam and the Cambodian government it created ruled the country for the next 12 years. The Khmer Rouge and other groups fought a guerrilla war against the Vietnamese occupiers and the Cambodian government. In 1979 and 1980, the chaos caused hundreds of thousands of Cambodians to rush to the border with Thailand to escape the violence and to avoid the famine which threatened Cambodia. Humanitarian organizations coped with the crisis with the "land bridge", one of the largest humanitarian aid efforts ever undertaken.

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11 March 1980, Bern, Switzerland.  "You rarely see him in concert halls. His legendary cancellations have become rare, but his performances still happen. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli rarely appears in public. Nothing is known about his private life. He is an absolute star and yet not a topic for the gossip columns. The only sensation he has to offer is his genius." (Andre Tubeuf)  The renowned pianist has decided to offer his aid to refugees from Cambodia. The first concert took place in Paris at the beginning of February, and on Tuesday, March 11, the maestro will perform on his Steinway grand piano in the Grand Casino Hall in Bern. Benedetti Michelangeli waives any royalties. The proceeds will be presented to Bishop Pietro Carretto Surathani (Thailand), who is present in Bern.  (Der Bund, 26.2.80)

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The pianist continues with benefit concerts in Paris, where in 1980 Michelangeli played for refugees from Cambodia, and in Brescia, Italy, where he is criticized by students and members of the organization Arci, who stand with protest posters and leaflets in front of the Teatro Grande. Posters proclaimed, for example: “The era of mythical figures locked in ivory towers must end; of stars who perform bizarre and exhibitionist poses”, or: “A great cultural meeting for a few people?!” Benedetti Michelangeli’s concerts were great cultural events, but they discriminated against those who could not afford cultural experiences at such high prices.  According to some people, especially the younger generations, Arturo Michelangeli’s celebrity mannerisms and elitism cannot be hidden behind an anachronistic attempt at solidarity with the Cambodian people, far removed from any offer that would include a wide section of music listeners and from any concrete political initiative leading to the easing of tensions, peace and solidarity” FALVO, Angelo. Corriere della Sera, 17. 6. 1980
 

The reactions of Italian citizens seemed to indirectly compare the behavior of this artist,
who strongly distanced himself from the social and political events of those years, with the behavior of another piano star who was increasingly asserting himself on the Lombard stage, namely Maurizio Pollini, winner of the 1960 Chopin Competition, who actively participated in and expressed his views on political events in Milan during those years.

The caution towards the pianist was incredible: in bars, only paper dishes were served so that they would not clank; the tuner Fabbrini, who regularly took care of the pianos on which
Michelangeli gave concerts, had to have a bed brought to the theater a few days before the concert, they lived with the pianist in the theater, and they rehearsed for fourteen hours a day so that the piano was perfectly adjusted
and produced exactly the sound that the artist wanted. VERGANI, Leonardo. Corriere della Sera, 18. 6. 1980

Katia Vendrame (Brno 2022)

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Tuesday, 18 March 1980, Théâtre Beaulieu, Lausanne.  

'Until the artist's appearance on stage, a recital by the Italian pianist Benedetti-Michelangeli is possible but not probable. He did indeed perform last Tuesday in Lausanne, at the Théâtre de Beaulieu, in a major recital featuring works by Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, and Chopin. A two-thirds full hall demonstrates that a special effort must be made in Lausanne to bring music lovers to hear the most famous artists of our time.

The legend of Benedetti-Michelangeli obviously lies more in the character than in his art. First of all, he's 100% Northern Italian, his extraordinary face, his blasé, weary, and contemptuous expression irresistibly reminiscent of the husband in the film Divorzio all'Italiana, played by Marcello Mastroiani. When, in front of a delirious audience, his sinister expression lets out an imperceptible crease in his right face, forming a fleeting smile, something happens, I assure you! And what about his irritation at a slight draft, his incessant attempts to adjust the height of the stool? This performance is fascinating because we are in the presence of a great actor who makes us participate, no doubt in spite of himself, in his fantasies

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'For many, the performance of four of Debussy's Images was the highlight of the concert. Here I disagree, because Benedetti-Michelangeli truly lacks the sensual warmth and sense of carnal mystery (manque de la chaleur sensuelle et du sens du mystère charnel) that can reveal anything other than a very subtle play of sonorities: I am quite happy that one never hears this on the piano, that these sounds seem supernatural - but I search in vain for this sudden surge of warmth, this instantaneous effusion that exists, as Marcel Dietschy noted, in all of Debussy's works, at a supreme point, and which is like a manifestation of the nature of love: this escapes, in my opinion, the sophisticated playing of the eminent aesthete that is Benedetti-Michelangeli, which is all the more regrettable, in my opinion, because many amateurs think, because of his prestige, that in his playing and nowhere else is to be found the truth of the interpretation of Debussy, it is at the same time to have a very bland conception of a "Debussy Ectoplesmique"...

(Pierre Hugli, Gazette de Lausanne, 21.3.80)
 

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1981

On 20-27 February, he recording Brahms' Four Ballades, Op. 10 and Schubert's Sonata No.4 in A minor, D.537 (Op.164) for Deutsche Grammophon​ in Friedrich-Ebert Halle, Hamburg, West Germany. 

'Like a bottle of rare Highland malt, this record comes with an attestation of maturity. "An instrument more than 60 years old was used in this recording." Michelangeli treats the Brahms Ballades Op.10 as beautifully, worked essays in Victorian Gothic. No one, not even Arrau on Philips, plays the central section of the ominous Edward with more unforced splendour; no one makes aftermath quite so capricious nor the final chord's harmonic disturbance so obviously baleful.  (Arrau's account of the final B major Ballade - part nocturne, part love-song, part meditation -  is of an order to make all of the performances thereafter seem fractured and lacking in fundamental sensibility.)  In this final Ballade Michelangeli occasionally seems as much fascinated by his instrument's sonority as by the music's inner self but in a piece as rhapsodic as this it is difficult to be other than subjective and Michelangeli's reading may strike some collectors as being quite as sympathetic and penetrating as much else on this fine record. Pour yourself a dram, take down the blood-curdling ballad of Edward from your shelves and put on the Brahms Ballade. There are many worse ways of spending a September evening.'

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'The pianist projects Brahms’ Op. 10 Ballades at his concentrated best, bringing out their stark, poetic qualities with a brand of pianistic refinement that in this case truly matches what the music is saying.'  Jed Distler

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*I quote this review by Richard Osborne (Gramophone, September 1981) because it was probably the first time that I read something about ABM.  Claudio Arrau's recording was made 9-11 April, 1978 in London, Henry Wood Hall (I'm not sure I agree with the reviewer).​​

7 April, 1981: Auditorio della RTSI, Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana,, Lugano, Switzerland. (Producers: Karl Faust and Carlo Piccardi)
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.12 in A-flat major, Op.26;  No.11 in B-flat major, Op.22
Schubert: Piano Sonata No.4 in A minor, D.537 (Op.164)

Brahms: Four Ballades, Op.10.

This recital was filmed and can be viewed here.  ABM's performance of the fourth Ballade is one of the most concentrated and mesmerising images of a pianist which I know.

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Michelangeli offered this live television recital in Lugano, authorising a video production. 'The staging takes on the characteristics of a confession: the authenticity emerges despite the fact that the pianist is actually being filmed by a highly complex and technically sophisticated television camera system. Unlike in 1962, Michelangeli gives the camera his full presence. The shots vary more than usual, due to the presence of multiple cameras, each with ample scope for movement, under the television direction of János Darvas. The shots often focus on the pianist's face, marked by time. This allows for an assessment that was impossible in the days of RAI recordings; but at least compared to previous films, the mobility of the face has been significantly accentuated. The footage captures the magnificence of Michelangeli's facial micro-movements, which impressively conform to the choreography of the performance. From a certain perspective, it's a showcase of Michelangeli's concentration, physical effort, and psychological and expressive tension. He doesn't seek out the camera, but he doesn't shy away from it either, and his gaze often falls on both the audience in the theatre and those at home.  The event cannot be compared to the Deutsche Grammophon albums. The tension of the live performance completely changes the meaning of the piano interpretation. Michelangeli's reception of the final applause is a mixture of shyness and concession to the audience, an aesthetic of transparency and the complete exposure of the visceral body of the performance.'  (Alessandro Cecchi, University of Pisa)

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Michelangeli takes your breath away. Tonight in Lugano, the third concert in four days.T he master pianist has chosen a small, hyper-acoustic hall for an unparalleled performance. Not exactly known for the annual percentage of his concerts, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli is offering three in four days to a happy Lugano: the first two on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, while the third is scheduled for this evening, broadcast on television. Or rather, he preferred to perform the same concert three times in the wood-panelled, hyper-acoustic hall of the Lugano Auditorium, rather than give just one concert in a more spacious theatre, which he found unpleasant in terms of sound. These are the usual reasons for the relentless attention to sound (which also include the exclusive use of personal pianos, this time brought in a pair from Hamburg) that so irritate the great captains of mass-produced music consumption.

He emerges from a small door and seems to come from a fabulous distance. For once, the impact with the tomb-like silence of the hall is calm, gradual; the first variations of Beethoven's Sonata op. 26 have something stiffened, like an exploratory caution. It is with the funeral march that he takes flight, with the harsh, rostrated sonorities of that page bristling only with chordal compounds; and even higher he proceeds with an intrepid performance of the little-visited Sonata in B flat op. 22. This page, many years ago, was masterfully analyzed in an essay by [Donald] Tovey, who considered it crucial in Beethoven's youth; but pianists have never loved it, not only because it was unprofitable as an effect, but because it was objectively composed of a thousand centrifugal attitudes. Michelangeli bathed it in a beam of grazing light, gathering it all into unity: in the first movement, the prodigious clarity of the articulation was shattered by lightning-fast sforzandi, of unspeakable clarity, entirely suited to the severe stylistic signature of the young Beethoven. The staccato tempo for the Adagio respected the processional tone, like a votive offering; the cantabile was transparent and hard as quartz, never languor, never pandering, despite the meticulous calculation of nuances that take your breath away: and finally, the hilarious discursiveness of the finale, the sly humor, in which keys and strings become one fused material and the music flows in rivulets. In Brahms's Four Ballads. Much frequented by the Brescian pianist in recent times, the menacing and dense poetry of those black jagged edges was once again admired, from which the artist then flew away. To the opposite shores of Schubert's Sonata, Op. 124 in A minor: he made it a miracle of placid luminosity, of innocent youth, in stark contrast with the impressive amalgamation of his face: mysterious, cabalistic, marked like a steep valley and illuminated by the flashes of his eyes. The reception was enthusiastic: there was not only gratitude, but a necessary physical reaction to an experience that oppresses with its intensity. To Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli at the piano: a concert that "oppresses" with its intensity.

Giorgio Pestelli, La Stampa 7 April 1981