1980s | Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli

1980-86

« Maestrissimo nell’arte della cancellazione! »

The possibility of Michelangeli canceling a concert at the last minute, even with a full house, was the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of any organiser , impresario, or producer. Not to mention the audience.

[Bruno Giurato]

Infamously, Benedetti Michelangeli cancelled 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]

There is a contrast here with other great pianists: Claudio Arrau trusted his tuner, and occasionally the first notes he heard of his piano were when he touched the keys at the start of his actual recital; Jorge Bolet, in discussing the vagaries and upsets of the travelling pianist, once said that musicians have to cope: 'There's no room for the Ivory Tower.'

'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)

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.

'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)

A glorious yet tormented life, a constant struggle for self-improvement, and a destiny of unhappiness mark the path of an artist who lacked just one of the many qualities that Ferruccio Busoni believes are essential to a concert pianist: "control over one's own sensations in irritating environments."

"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)

Japan, October 1980

In the 1980s, Michelangeli 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".

In 1980 he visited Japan again (for the fourth time) but actually 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)

Japanese Wikipedia has this (unsourced): Michelangeli's 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 went according to plan. His subsequent cancellations were 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.

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 cancelled. 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, - a tantalising prospect - 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.

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.

'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 [Swiss] 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.'

La Stampa's headline: 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

Cord Garben's account:

'In 1980, during a tour of Japan, featuring the Robert Schumann Piano Concerto (15 and 16 October), previously performed in Munich, ABM also encountered problems with the instrument. The stakes were high, as he was traveling with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and his friend and conductor, Sergiu Celibidache. When the situation became more tense, he briefly settled on a Yamaha piano, which he thought was suitable for a concert at the time. In a generous gesture, he offered the organisers to have a Steinway he owned flown in, at his expense. The Japanese refused. Anyone who has learned how severely the Japanese handle questions of sovereignty will not be surprised that the rebellious guest was initially confined to his workroom in the NHK radio building. Despite his furious complaints to the Swiss embassy, his and his companions' plane tickets were revoked, and his nearly new piano was confiscated. He immediately flew home at his own expense

'And from then on began a period of glaciation that lasted for twelve years. Michelangeli's irritation with the Land of the Rising Sun would continue for a long time. Even in a subsequent attempt to record Ravel's Piano Concerto, he renewed his request [to remove Japanese players from the orchestra], little inclined to unity between peoples.'

The famous French record producer Michel Glotz in La note bleue (2002):

Benedetti Michelangeli was playing in Tokyo [date unspecified] in the magnificent NHK hall. We [Glotz and Alexis Weissenberg] went to hear him, with our friend Michi Murayama, the president and founder of the Osaka Festival. We were seated in the front row, exactly in Michelangeli's line of sight (we would have preferred to have more discreet seats, but the hall was so full that there was no arguing). He played like a god. At the end, Alexis went to congratulate him, told him how much he had admired him since his youth and, noticing a "doll" [poupeé] around his right thumb, asked him: "But what do you have there?"

"An enormous whitlow [French panaris, a microbic disease caused by a bacteria called Streptococcus, causing infection in nails]," the Italian pianist replied. Alexis was surprised: "You played with a whitlow? Is it open, at least?"

"No, I didn't want the Japanese doctors to touch it!"

Alexis insisted: "But why didn't you cancel? It's really very dangerous to play with a thumb full of pus!"

"I've already canceled so many times in Japan, replied Benedetti Michelangeli, that this time I really couldn't do it. So I played..."

1980 continued

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 - who died on 6 August 1978 - for Indochinese refugees in Thailand.

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.

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)

16 June 1980, Brescia

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.

Leonardo Vergani, Corriere della Sera, 18. 6. 1980

Katia Vendrame (Brno 2022)

'For days and days, Mr. Fabrini, the only one Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli trusts, slept in the theatre, behind a makeshift screen, because the maestro wanted to always have him within reach to adjust an E-flat, or an F-sharp, to extract the most perfect sound from the strings of the grand piano, which will then be opened before the spectators like the extraordinary specimen of a cruel vivisection inside a luxurious coffin.

Benedetti Michelangeli's tuner was a tough job. The pianist rehearsed for up to fourteen hours a day. Every now and then, the tuner had to intervene with his surgical instruments. And intervening meant working for hours and hours, seeking an almost impossible purity of sound. For this reason, the tuner had that cot brought to him last Friday and placed it in a dark corner backstage.

It's Arturo Benedetti Michelangell's first concert after a dozen years' absence from Italy. And among the stucco, the gilded cupids, and the slightly moth-eaten velvet of the Teatro Grande, there are two types of spectators, or rather, two levels of listening.

The first is that of the young, with ten thousand lire in the gallery, who have never heard the great pianist except through a few records. And then there are the spectators who have chased Benedetti Michelangeli's concerts everywhere, undertaking unheard-of efforts, and who are a bit like the veterans of Napoleon's campaigns who, in their time, spoke only of Austerlitz or Jena.

"I was in Venice, or in Berlin or London, and I can assure you that that passage by Debussy has become more effective, more clear." He compares it to ten notes by Chopin, played who knows where, many, many years ago, as if they had just been heard. And the young people, packed into the gallery like sardines, queuing up since early afternoon to find a good position? They—says an old gentleman veteran of Benedetti Michelangeli's homeland battles—can only make comparisons with records. Leave that to me, who have been following him since he began...

During the intervals at the bar, there is terror. If the maestro hears the clinking of a glass, he is capable of leaving. He asks politely if he can settle for a paper cup. You know, because of the noise...

Precisely out of fear of Benedetti Michelangeli's tantrums - but did they really happen, or are they part of the legend of this man who is now playing without earning a penny, who could be a millionaire but who certainly doesn't have much money in the bank, who has recorded very few records and who, one day, after having listened to some of his recordings, even ordered the record company to withdraw them from the market and to destroy the matrices, thus giving up earnings of who knows how many hundreds of millions. The public holds back some cough caused by a summer

that doesn't show up due to a volcano acting up.

The big question is whether the pianist will at least grant an encore. From the gallery, the students applaud with hands as big as spatulas, nudging each other to see if they can convince him. Here too, opinions are divided: he never grants them, he only grants them when he's in a good mood, which is quite rare for someone like him. - Finally, exceptionally, he granted an encore, a waltz by - Chopin, from the posthumous collection.

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, with his vaguely Chinese face, plays with a black handkerchief placed on the piano. He uses it every now and then to wipe away sweat. But it's really black. "Of course, he's always used black ones, only black ones," say those in the know. "He's performing the same concert he performed in the Vatican for Paul VI."

The theatre is a compact human mass in a cavernous light. There is only, mysteriously, a single, completely empty box, the proscenium one in the fourth row. Every now and then, a very slight creak: the Teatro Grande, all made of wood, seems to be settling.

Duilio Courir:

Once upon a time, Beethoven (which he didn't play this evening) seemed real only when played by the Germans, or Debussy (he played Book 1 of the Preludes) when performed by the French. It was Michelangeli who eliminated these divisions and these schematisms of the piano.

Now he has achieved a mastery of touch, such as to achieve a dynamic of sound that has something magical: an internal levitation or aggravation of the sound that leaves, due to the interpretative charge it contains, admiring to the point of shock. This filtering of colors adapted, the other evening, wonderfully to his idea of Debussy, but in the funeral march of the Chopin sonata, the accent of each note was heard differently from the others, just as in the mad wind of the finale presto there was a sameness that left the audience shocked, almost powerless to react.

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

'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)

Monday, 16 June 1980: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli will perform a special concert in memory of Pope Paul VI at 8:15 pm at the Teatro Grande, Brescia. The programme includes: Brahms,: Ballades op. 10; Chopin: Sonata from the Funeral March op. 35; Debussy: Preludes, Book I.

'Michelangeli plays in Brescia in June after a 12-year voluntary exile

THE PIANIST FORGIVES US (23 May 1980)

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, after twelve years away, returns to Italy to perform. He returns to his hometown, Brescia, to conclude with three evenings the international festival whose theme this year is "The Piano with German Romanticism."

It is a particularly important event and only for those who love music, since the performances of the great pianist (just 60 years old) are increasingly rare, but also because having agreed to play practically means a reconciliation with the Italy he left in 1968, disgusted by a long series of vicissitudes, even bitter disappointments he had experienced. Only in 1977 did he return from Lugano for a concert, but in the Vatican, for Paul VI. At that time he had made a series of conditions. He had not even wanted to speak to journalists.

Silently, for weeks and weeks, just as the festival was taking place in parallel with the Donizetti in Bergamo and the Grande in Brescia, Agistino Orizio has been stitching together a series of meetings with Benedetti Michelangeli, one after the other, until

to make him say yes. Michelangeli will be in Brescia from Friday, June 13th until the 20th. According to initial rumours, the three concerts should be scheduled for the evenings of the 16th, 18th, and 20th. The programme for the three evenings is still secret. What is certain, however, is that from the 13th to the 16th, the Teatro Grande will be exclusively available to the pianist for preparation.

Michelangeli is a genius and a wild man. Brescia still remembers the time he left everyone in the lurch, skipping the evening concert simply because that afternoon, while he was rehearsing on stage, a meeting of the box-holders was taking place in a small room of the band.

Michelangeli is like that. He is able to get the sound he wants from his Steinway, but those sounds are not just due to "touch." They are also the fruit of endless hours of rehearsals and continuous research. The faithful and rare tuners who have followed the pianist throughout his career can testify to this. Once a concert started late because after a whole day of keyboard exercises by Michelangeli, Langeli had realized that to achieve the sound he desired, he needed to prick all the piano's hammers with pins. By raising the hairs on the felt layer that struck the strings, he achieved the softness he needed to convey the desired sound.

Another time he drove the mechanics crazy trying to get the pedals of his inseparable piano to move just right.

These are not oddities, extravagances. Michelangeli treats the instrument with extreme care, modifying it each time like a Formula One driver modifies the engine of his racing car. Genius and wildness, but also genius and perseverance.

From June 13th to 16th, he'll hole up in the theater: gray vicuna pants, a black crewneck sweater, his hands protected by protective leather gloves. For hours, he'll repeat the same passage, perhaps just a few measures, with unimaginable meticulousness; for hours, he'll search for the exact sound of a chord. Then, on the night of the concert, it will be absolute perfection. C. G.

Brahms in Lugano

A mesmerising moment from Brahms, Ballade No. 4 Op. 10 in B major, Andante con moto: Lugano 1981

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.

As in the Trentino mountains, where ABM lived in his beloved mountain cottage in the small village of Rabbi, the weather could change in a flash, and the "dissatisfied" person would flee to a hotel without having accomplished anything. The culprits were easy to find: the humidity, the accompanying noises, the depth of the keys, the graphite coating of the uprights. Artists, notoriously, are masters at inventing pretexts that free them from the obligation of dealing with a special situation. In autumn, the weather remained fine. The [Schubert] recording was completed in a single afternoon.

What ABM achieves in [the fourth Ballade] for me, simply belongs to the greatest pianistic achievements. Having opened his soul to us for a few minutes, we experience a happy synthesis between coldly calculated planning of melody and "accompaniment" and emotional unfolding. Nothing is empty, nothing is devoid of expression. Interminable lengths, painfully hold the listener in their grip and do not let go, captivating him until
the very end. When this catastrophe of the soul culminates in the final bars (ABM
to accentuate the end, here adds a lower octave not foreseen by the composer—Borchardt scornfully called it "the addition of a prolonged low sound"), one of the most moving funeral songs of Romantic music arrives.
[Cord Garben]

'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.'

'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

*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.

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)

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

Michelangeli No. 4 in B major

1982

*Friday, 19 March 1982; Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris: Orchestre National de L'Opéra & Alain Lombard. Ravel Concerto (also Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra)

8 April, 1982, Royal Festival Hall, London: Michelangeli performed Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major, accompanied by Sergiu Celibidache and the London Symphony Orchestra. Watch here.

In an interview with Duilio Courir for Corriere della Sera 19 Ocotber 1983, Celibidache said: 'Blessed Michelangeli. How could you let him leave Italy? There's an incredible friendship and harmony between us. I'm sorry he's no longer in Italy because he's a musician who will never be born again. We just played the Ravel concerto in London. At the end, a lady came into the dressing room: "Ah! Maestro, what would Ravel have said if he'd heard it!" And Michelangeli replied: "What importance can that have? Did you like it, ma'am?" shy, aggressive. What a shame for Italy to have lost him.'

Tuesday, 13 April, 1982: Royal Festival Hall, London, England.
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.12 in A-flat major, Op.26

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.4 in E-flat major, Op.7
Debussy: 12 Preludes (Book I)
Encore: Debussy: Hommage à Rameau (Images, Book I No.2). LISTEN here or HERE

This performance was issued on BBC Legends. In the BBC Radio3 broadcast, the gloriously-voiced announcer Patricia Hughes states that there is great excitement in the hall as ABM has not played in London for many years. [Was that previous visit 18 March, 1973: Royal Festival Hall?]

"Bennevis" on Pianoworld forum has posted this:

'Here are a few recollections by the BBC producer of that concert (which was broadcast live), which may be of interest.

"The rumour that Michelangeli was a hypochondriac and fretted constantly about his health was not far from the truth. In his defence, he had only one lung and so took what safeguards he could to avoid colds and flu (like meeting as few people as possible!) London was one place he feared, and despite precautions he managed to pick up some infection during his 1982 visit. The viruses are fairly well spread out through the audience too, as you will hear! The recital was nearly called off, but he decided to give it because the staff (Sue Mallett, the LSO administrator, in particular) had been so kind to him.

"Beethoven is always a struggle," he said to me in the interval, "just more of a struggle today....." He used the Steinway C for the first half because he preferred it for Beethoven, and it took less effort. Never a man to shy away from Beethoven's disturbing sforzandi, the extra tension in this concert takes them right to the edge of sanity at times. Here is the normally supremely controlled Michelangeli right at the limit, and that is a rare treat.

The Michelangeli we saw backstage was affable most of the time - concerned about the facilities and the forthcoming performance, of course, but nothing like the aloof, distant figure the public witnessed. I have photographs of him smiling and chatting with the LSO members and Celibidache the week before, and those eyes which could seem haunted and dark on the concert platform positively sparkled when there was a young lady to talk to!"

Liszt, Eglogue (Années de pélerinage, 1 ére Année "Suisse")
27 October, 1982: Liederhalle, Stuttgart, as an encore in a recital, the second half of which consisted of the second book of Debussy Préludes.

(A recording available on the AURA label - is this is? ; another from 6 November 1982 in Vienna)

1984

In October 1984, Michelangeli played a historic concert for Princess Grace of Munich and Prince Ranieri in Monte Carlo, in which he performed Schumann's Fantasy in C major, Chopin's first Ballade and Scherzo No. 2, and, probably for the first time, Claude Debussy's second book of preludes in front of an audience. Unfortunately, a recording of this concert is not available. As with the concerts in Lugano, most of the audience came from Italy, where he was still the most famous and popular musician. That is why the "Società dei concerti" decided to prepare buses for the Italian audience at the beginning of the 1986-1987 season and accompany him to Bregenz [31.5.81] for Michelangeli's concert, where he performed pieces by Chopin (Sonata No. 2), Debussy (Images) and Ravel (Gaspard de la nuit and Valses nobles et sentimentales). After the concert, more than two thousand Italian listeners were offered a banquet and then taken back to Milan by bus.

Le Monde Diplomatique (5 October 1984): Un Raphaël du piano

'Who would believe that Hugo Wolf's Italian Serenade is of such a nature as to draw crowds? And yet, there was a great deal of running around 8:15 p.m. in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, people were crowding into the entrance hall of the Salle Pieyel,

The funereal sound borrowed from the Symphonie Fantastique indicated that the gates of paradise would soon be closed. Woe to the latecomers!

The friends of the Orchestre de Paris threatened not to let them in after the first piece and to begin at the appointed time. The idea is a good one, by the way.

But in fact, we were running for something else: we knew that Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli, defying his legend as a capricious pianist, had not canceled and that he would perform tonight. Which concerto? It doesn't matter since we all know them.
We don't go to a concert - in principle - to hear what a virtuoso has chosen, but the version he offers of a particular famous score. [Schumann with Orchestre de Paris & Daniel Barenboim]

1985

March 3, 1985: Bregenz, Austria (Audience Recording | FLAC)

· Chopin: Fantasy in F minor, Op.49

· Chopin: Scherzo No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.31

· Chopin: Ballade No.1 in G minor, Op.23

· Chopin: Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op.22

Encores[?]:

· Chopin: Mazurka in G minor, Op.67 No.2

· Chopin: Mazurka in B minor, Op.33 No.4

Monday 18 March, 1985, Tonhalle (Grosser Saal), Zurich

Klavierabend. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli spielt Chopin: Fantasie f-Moll, Scherzo bMoll, Ballade g-Moll, Polonaise Andante Spianato Es-Dur, Debussy: Douze Preludes II (20 Uhr 15)

Neue Zürcher Zeitung 20 March 1985:

Debussy's "Preludes" demand twenty nuances of touch, and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli gave them a few more. He played in Zurich again last Monday after years of absence.

After the interval, Michelangeli played Debussy's Preludes II. He played them – perfectly. He played them as soundscapes; and as miracles of rhythm; and as dynamic experiences. "Brouillards," the first of the twelve pieces, initially disappeared behind the fog of quintos circling in pianissimo—until the double octaves, "un peu en dehors," and later a short bass phrase, "un peu marque," expanded the proceedings into depth. "La puerta del vino" came brusquely, with the momentum of the habanera, dancing in its appoggiaturas—until first a sforzato-fortissimo redirected the style and then, softening, softened the harshness of the opening bar by bar, note by note. In the final "Feux d'artifice", the dotted treble octaves, the chords cut out of the glissandi, finally, distant, vanished traces of the "Marseillaise." As an encore, Chopin's Mazurka, Op. 33, No. 4.

April 26, 1985: Munich, West Germany (Audience Recording | AAC256)

· Chopin: Fantasy in F minor, Op.49

· Chopin: Ballade No.1 in G minor, Op.23

· Chopin: Scherzo No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.31

· Chopin: Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op.22

· Debussy: 12 Preludes (Book II)

1986

Friday, 16 May, 1986 at 8:15pm: Grosser Saal, Tonhalle, Zürich, Switzerland

First half:

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

Debussy: Images (Book I)

Debussy: Images (Book II)

Benedetti Michelangeli never played the second half of this concert (Ravel, Valses Nobles, Gaspard) since he felt the temperature in the auditorium was too low. The Los Angeles Times (17 June 1995) recalled the event: 'In 1986 he refused to continue a concert in Zurich after the intermission because of problems with the piano’s pitch. He said that although the piano had been tuned, fresh air allowed into the hall on the day of the concert had thrown the instrument off.'

Isacco Rinaldi write: 'I had to go to visit him in Pura. In 1984 and 1985 the Maestro suffered a second serious misfortune in terms of health, of which little or nothing is mentioned in the texts that I have had the opportunity to read, also because those who took care of him tried to keep it hidden. He suffered a severe form of paresis, which for a certain period robbed him of the power of speech and totally paralysed his right hand. When he began to recover I went to visit him and found him very sad and bitter. “Once more – he said – I am forced to start all over again, like a baby”. (...) His return to the concert world took place in Zurich on 16th May 1986, with a programme of Chopin, op. 35, Debussy, Images Series I and II; the second part, which would consits of Ravel’s Valses Nobles and Gaspard de la Nuit, did not take place. I was there and, knowing that just a few months earlier his right hand and his speech had been paralysed, I realised perfectly what an enormous effort that concert must have been for him. In addition, the temperature in the hall was high, and the humidity very high, and the piano was in bad condition. I greatly admired his strength of mind in bringing to completion the first part of a concert which, in no way, could have been continued.'

31 May 1986, Festspielhaus, Bregenz, Austria: recital

'Carovana di pullman da Milano, con ritorna in nottata, per quasi mille persone.' 'A caravan of buses from Milan, returning at night, carrying nearly a thousand people.' The first bus will leave at 10 am from the square in front of the San Siro stadium, arriving in Bregenz at 1:30 pm. After the concert, a buffet will be offered from the sponsor Polenghi Lombardo, the around 9:30pm, the caravan will resume its journey to Milan. (Corriere della sera, 16.3.86)

At 7:00 p.m. sharp, the audience is ready and silently awaits the maestro who, last month in Zurich, had decided to interrupt a concert midway, sending everyone home. Minutes pass, 7:05, 7:10, and nothing happens. Uneasiness begins to creep in, a group of latecomers still manages to enter amidst the silence, until the lights go down and Benedetti Michelangeli finally appears, slowly crossing the stage. The tension dissolves for a moment, with thunderous applause during which some rise to their feet.

La Stampa 3.6.86

'I was there. On May 31st 1986 in the morning I left Bergamo, my home town wth other three friends directed to Bregenz. We arrived early in the afternoon, the hall was enormous. We took our places and we waited among around two thousands people I guess, in an unreal silence, no one almost spoke or made any noise while waiting. It was a magnificent performance enveloped in a deep, desperate, inconsolable melancholy. ' (YouTube comment)

Michelangeli Will Not Play in Vienna

La Stampa (7.6.86) announced that Michelangeli has cancelled his concerts scheduled for June 13 and 15 in Vienna. Benedetti Michelangeli cited a defect in his piano for his cancellation—the second after the missed concert in April. The artist will, in fact, only play his own instrument. The renowned pianist will be replaced by Friedrich Guida, who also replaces Rudolf Serkln, whose concert was scheduled for June 14, who had to withdraw due to illness. Placido Domingo, who was due to perform the title role in Ponchielli's "Mona Lisa" at the Vienna State Opera, has also cancelled his engagement: he will be replaced by Giorgio Merlghi.