Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli: "The piano is my enemy!" This extract is from an Italian newspaper in March 1987, the month when I heard ABM (for the only time). «Queste sono macchine infernali» Words and life in London of this most reclusive and secretive of musicians, who will give his final concert on Saturday. Michelangeli: "The piano is my enemy". He is staying in the English capital in a small apartment with special curtains. He is accompanied by his faithful secretar

26 February 1957.  In  The Musical Times (April 1957), the gracious music critic and biographer of Schumann Joan Chissell wrote:  ' When Michelangeli failed to turn up for his B.B.C. recital towards the end of February, there was wide-spread anxiety that his two appearances with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent in the Festival Hall might also be cancelled. In the event, he called off his Schumann performance in the second of the two concerts, but made the

David Hurwitz in December 2024 on Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli's recording of Ravel and Rachmaninoff. He makes an interesting comparison with Carlos Kleiber. ABM recorded Ravel's Concerto in G and Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 4 for His Master's Voice, with the London Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Ettore Gracis. 7-8 & 10 March, 1957 in London (Abbey Road Studios - Studio No. 1). Peter Andry, Inside the Recording Studio (2008), gives an account of the recording process.

There were two recitals at the Barbican, London in June.  Andrew Clements commented in The New Statesman  (7.6.85) that the pianist had...