Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995)
South America
Brazilian newspaper Correio Paulistana (16 March 1949) notes that Michelangeli will perform in the Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro. But see below...
21 July, 1949: Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, Argentina. A recording from a Radio Belgrano broadcast (for the date see the discussion below)
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.3 in C major, Op.2 No.3
Chopin: Mazurka in A minor, Op.68 No.2, in B minor, Op.33 No.4
Chopin: Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op.22
Encores:
· Grieg: Lyric Piece in E major, Op.68 No.5 (Cradle Song)
· Galuppi: Sonata No.5 in C major
· Grieg: Lyric Piece in G minor, Op.47 No.5 (Melancholy)
Despite the poor quality of the recording, it is possible to hear the clear singing tone of the right hand in the Andante spianato e Grande Polacca brillante, which is combined with very calm playing with large breaths between individual long phrases, in contrast to the brilliant virtuoso parts, where the sound suddenly becomes very light.
Katia Vendrame
Enzo Valenti Ferro, 100 años de música en Buenos Aires: de 1890 a nuestros días has different dates. On 28 July, ABM began a series of five recitals at the Colón with 2 Scarlatti sonatas, Bach-Busoni Chaconne, Beethoven Sonata No. 3 in C, Debussy Images I and Brahms/Paganini.
La Nación, 29 July, 1949
After several postponements due to illness, the Italian concert pianist Arturo Michelangeli made his début before our public yesterday (Thursday 28th), offering his first piano recital at the Teatro Colón. This instrumentalist had been preceded by complimentary comments from European critics, which were justified at yesterday's performance, since there is no doubt that Michelangeli is a keyboard performer of notable merit. His art stands out for the clarity of his interpretation, which is free from all exaggeration and maintains the sonorous discourse within a characteristic sobriety and fluidity of means. His mechanism is truly irreproachable, as he has achieved absolute perfection ("su mecanismo es verdaderamente irreprochable"), in the precision of the pianistic touch, as in the deification/dosage [layering?] (Spanish print not clear: dosificación/ desificación??) of sounds or in the handling of the pedal, which is always appropriate.
These skills are complemented by a flexible personality, which knows how to overcome purely technical problems at all times to dedicate itself to the musical aspect of the page fo the score which he is playing. He had devised an integrated programme of works from the repertoire by Italian, French, and German composers. It began with two sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, which in Michelangeli's hands take on all the required freshness and grace inherent in the brilliant Neapolitan harpsichordist. Next came the "Chaconne" by Bach-Busoni, as well as the Sonata in C major, Op. 2 No. 3 by Beethoven, which followed it.
The first series of "Images" by Claude Debussy had been included, and in this concert pianist the composer found a skilled interpreter, keen to capture the subtle atmosphere of his three numbers: "Reflections in the Water," "Homage to Rameau," and "Movement." Michelangeli concluded the performance with a brilliantly vigorous performance of Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35. The audience rewarded Michelangeli's performance with warm applause, which the pianist acknowledged by playing encores by Scarlatti, Chopin, and Albéniz.
Tomorrow (Saturday) at 5:30 p.m. the second concert will take place, a Chopin festival. The program includes the Fantasy, Op. 49, Prelude, Op. 45 Sonata No. 2, Op. 35, the Berceuse, Op. 57 and the Scherzo, Op. 31, three Studies [apparently Op.10 - 1, 4 and 5], and Andante Spianato and Polonaise, Op. 22
There's some confusion here: the Aura CD that has been issued lists the selection of pieces are being recorded on 21 July in the Teatro Colón; yet this review in La Nación would seem to suggest that the first recital was on the 28th, which is billed as being the first recital and a "función extraordinario". The Aura CD contains items not in this "first recital". Is ot a conflation of two recitals (Thursday and Saturday)?
(It was noted that the director general of the Colón, Mr. Cirilo Grassi Diaz, has resigned in order to retire.)
On Saturday 6 August (5pm), Michelangeli "the sensational pianist" gave his third recital in the Teatro Colón, works by Galuppi, Grazioli, Paradisi, Bach-Busoni, Beethoven, Ravel and Brahms. On the Sunday, La Nación wrote:
Yesterday afternoon, the Italian pianist Arturo Michelangeli offered his third concert at the Teatro Colón. His work once again maintained the characteristics already mentioned, excelling primarily in the technical aspect, which gives his interpretations a particular brilliance. This detail included some finely translated pieces by ancient Italian composers; Bach's "Chaconne," adapted by Busoni; Beethoven's "Sonata, Op. 111"; Ravel's "Noble and Sentimental Waltzes," which were poetically performed; and Brahms's "Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35," which we have already heard in his first concert. Warmly praised by the audience, Michelangeli added new numbers outside the programme.
[The Peruvian composer Raoul de Verneuil, who lived in Paris for several years, perfecting his musical knowledge, has been in this capital for several days. His work has been praised, not only in that city, but also in Vienna, Madrid, and Zurich, for his effective way of adapting the primitive, pre-Columbian melodic line of his motifs to modern technique. De Verneuil will remain with us for a while, presenting some of his chamber music works.
A symphonic performance will be offered today at the Gran Rex
On the same Saturday, July 6, the Santisimo Salvador celebrations took place in the city. The last of ABM's four solo recitals took place in the Colón on Thursday 11 August.
On Sunday 14 August in the morning (10:30am), Michelangeli played Beethoven's Emperor with conductor Victor de Sabata in the Gran Teatro Opera, Avenida Corrientes 860 (also Beethoven's 9th symphony). This had been organised by the famous Asociación Wagneriana. One again ABM displayed 'la seguridad y precisión de su mecanismo al servicio de su serena personalidad musical'.
19 August 1949. ABM was due to play Haydn's Concerto in D major, Hob XVIII:11, Op. 21 and Mozart's concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466 at the Teatro Odeón with Croatian-Argentinian conductor Ljerko Spiller for the Asociación de Amigos de la Música but he cancelled this and other engagements, as he had to undergo surgery. The programme had some unusual items: Bohuslav Martinu's Partita, Julián Bautista's Suite all'antica Diario da Noite (31 August 1949) announces that ABM has had to cancel his Brazil concert for Pro Arte in São Paulo on 9th September because of this emergency surgery (appendectomy); he will return to Italy.
A recital was announced for Tuesday 23 August 1949 in Teatro El Círculo, Rosario (186 miles northwest of Buenos Aires) at 9:45pm, but on the 20th Diario Crónica published: 'Pianist Michelangel will not perform for now. The third concert by Italian pianist Arturo Michelangel, who was scheduled to appear at Circulo, was announced for next Tuesday. Reasons beyond the control of the company and the concert artist have led to the postponement of the performance, to a date that will be set shortly. At the time of his presentation, the prestigious concert artist will offer a top-notch repertoire (Bach, Beethoven, Scarlatti, Debussy and Brahms).'
Friedrich Gulda and Walter Gieseking were also "in town".
On 20 May 1949, Maria Meneghini Callas made her Buenos Aires debut in the Teatro Colón as Puccini’s Turandot, in performances conducted by Tullio Serafin. In addition to the four performances of Turandot and four of Norma in May and June 1949, she sang a single Aida on 2 July and appeared in a gala performance celebrating the Argentine Oath of Independence one week later. It was Callas’ only operatic season in Argentina.
An eleven-year-old Martha Argerich would play Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54 in the Teatro Colón on 26 November 1952 with Washington Castro conducting Orquestra Sinfonica de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.
Alberto Neumann said to Il Quotidiano (21.1.2008):
'I met Michelangeli for the first time in Buenos Aires in 1949. His piano playing was already legendary at the time. I played for him in one of the most beautiful homes in the city, the Landini-Favelevics, where he studied every day of his long stay in Buenos Aires. He was in an armchair a little far from the piano, and I had my hands resting on my knees. Before starting, I looked at him; he was very pale, and I thought, "How sorry I am! This brilliant young man won't be able to live for more than another month!" Michelangeli seemed distracted; at times his eyes would roll over and his sockets would remain white. It was terribly impressive. But as soon as I began to lift my left hand from my knee and move it toward the keyboard, he announced, "Mazurka in A minor!" I felt like I was in the presence of a magician or a fortune teller! From that moment on, my connection with the Maestro was established.'
A less welcome visitor in 1949 was Dr. Josef Mengele, who - under the false name Helmut Gregor - sailed from Genoa to Argentina in July with a passport issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross. He was to live in Buenos Aires for several years and actually received an Argentine ID card under his real name. Facing extradition by West German authorities in 1960, he fled to Paraguay and evaded capture until his death in 1979.
Air or sea? An early route in March 1948, for example, flew from Milan (MXP) to Buenos Aires (EZE), with stops including Dakar (DKR) in West Africa and Natal (NAT) in Brazil. Alitalia began offering long-haul flights from Milan to Buenos Aires in 1948. The grueling 36-hour flight included several stops for refueling and servicing. One 1948 route flew from Milan to Buenos Aires with stops in Cairo, Dakar, Natal, and Rio de Janeiro.
Upon arrival, travelers would have landed at the newly constructed Ministro Pistarini Airport (EZE), which opened in 1949 and was considered one of the largest and most modern airports in the world.
Ship travel was the more traditional and common method of crossing the Atlantic to Argentina. The "Italia" Societa di Navigazione, or Italian Line, operated a rebuilt passenger fleet on the Genoa-Buenos Aires route; the journey lasted approximately 14 to 17 days.
In 1949, the Italian Line introduced two rebuilt liners, the Conte Grande and the Conte Biancamano (the latter was built in the Scottish shipyard William Beardmore & Co.
in Dalmuir, near Glasgow).
Baldassare Galuppi (18 October 1706 – 3 January 1785) was a Venetian composer, born on the island of Burano in the Venetian Republic. He belonged to a generation of composers, including Johann Adolph Hasse, Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and C. P. E. Bach, whose works are emblematic of the prevailing galant music that developed in Europe throughout the 18th century. He achieved international success, spending periods of his career in Vienna, London and Saint Petersburg, but his main base remained Venice, where he held a succession of leading appointments. Michelangeli also had in his repertoire Galuppi: Presto in B-flat major.
La Sonata in do maggiore di Galuppi. Lì ha un timbro che non sembra un pianoforte, sembra uno strumento inventato da lui. Un suono che non esiste.
'Galuppi's Sonata in C major. It has a timbre that doesn't sound like a piano; it sounds like an instrument he invented. A sound that doesn't exist.' (Piero Rattalino)
Michelangeli's teaching activity continued in Venice, Berlin, Geneva and Budapest. His concept of training students to become professional piano concertists[definition needed] was unorthodox but successful, and he taught for several years in Bozen, and from 1952 to 1964 in Arezzo (with a break caused by ill health between 1953 and 1955). The courses eventually resulted in the foundation of the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli International Piano Academy, which was to be organized by the city and provincial authorities in Arezzo, in cooperation with the 'Amici della Musica' Society. Unfortunately, the project did not come to fruition. He ran further courses in Moncalieri, Siena, and Lugano, and from 1967 he gave private tuitions at a Rabbi [clarification needed] in his Alpine villa in the province of Trento.
'We are in western Trentino, where the small Val di Rabbi branches off from the Val di Sole. Here, in a tiny hamlet surrounded by woods, is the Alpine hut that served as Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli's refuge for three decades. The great pianist's wife, visiting the Milan Trade Fair, came across building and pointed it out to him. He was immediately won over and decided to purchase it. He reserved the ground-floor rooms for his advanced training students, each equipped with a piano. On the first floor, he placed the common room, with its traditional stube and fireplace, while the bedrooms and his study were on the second. When the number of students increased—Americans, Slavs, and especially Japanese, a select group from whom he charged no compensation—he built another cabin next to the first, where his two Steinway grand pianos were housed in the larger room. The students stayed for extended periods, and he established a family atmosphere with them, a sense of community. He was a skilled cook, and in the evenings, he enjoyed cooking for everyone, then staying late to chat. His most intimate relationship was with Signora Gemma, the housekeeper who would care for him for three decades. A touching memory is one winter when Michelangeli, returning from a tour with two Japanese students, suggests to Gemma that they put up a Christmas tree for his children and those in the hamlet. He says he hadn't had one since he was little. And the Japanese girls take care of the decorations, making beautiful ones even just from candy and chocolate wrappers. He was an avid reader of "Topolino" (Mickey Mouse).'
(Alessandro Tamburini, Avvenire, June 12, 2025)
Busoni Competition 1949
“Dearest Arturo, what would you think about holding a large international piano competition in Bolzano on the 25th anniversary of Ferruccio Busoni’s death? Doesn’t the anniverary impose a moral obligation, in every country, to remember and honor the name of this great artist? […] It’s a hard endeavor, I know, but I would like to be able to count on your support and your valuable and friendly collaboration.”
(Cesare Nordio to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, January/February 1949)
These words written by Cesare Nordio, the director of the Conservatory of Bolzano at that time, laid the first cornerstones for what would become the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition. The anniversary of Busoni’s death represented the perfect opportunity to create an initiative that would lend the conservatory and his city prestige, which could build something of a bridge between the Italian and German cultures out of the rubble of war, being in line with the influence that Ferruccio Busoni, an Italian artist, held in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition was launched on 12 September 1949. It immediately captured the attention of the contemporary music scene, due in part to the presence of an extraordinary Honorary Committee, which included Claudio Arrau, Wilhelm Backhaus, Alfred Cortot, Walther Gieseking, Dinu Lipatti, Arthur Rubinstein and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who made a considerable sum of money (two hundred thousand lire) available for second prize. From a one-off competition, it would soon become an indispensable annual event.
In that first competition of 1949, the just-18 Alfred Brendel earned an honourable 4th prize. In 1952 the Busoni Prize (which at the time consisted of a sum of 500,000 lire, 15 concerts and a Schulze & Pollmann grand piano) was awarded to the Roman pianist Sergio Perticaroli. In 1956, First Prize was awarded to Jörg Demus; the following year it went the extraordinary sixteen-year-old Martha Argerich. A piano-composition competition also took place in some years: the performance of fourteen-year-old Maurizio Pollini aroused amazement in 1956, when he replaced Giorgio Vidusso in the difficult task of performing the works chosen by the jury at the very last moment.
(from the competition website)
The opening marked the 25th anniversary of the Empoli-born composer's death. ABM would be the youngest member of a panel of judges whose members included Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli; Jacques Février, French pianist; Nikita Magaloff, Russian pianist; Cesare Nordio (artistic director and president), Italian composer; Antonino Votto, conductor who a few years later would be appointed music director of Milan's Teatro alla Scala; Egon Kornauth, Austrian composer; Gino Tagliapietra, Italian pianist and composer.
The first prize was not awarded (initiating a long series of black smokes), with second place going to Ludovico Lessona, 21, from Turin, a student of Benedetti Michelangeli; third place went to Rossana Orlandini Bottai, 29, from Pisa; fourth place went to Alfred Brendel, 18, from Austria; and fifth place went to Bela Siki, 26, from Hungary.
[Filippo Michelangeli]
Busoni, Ferruccio (Dante Michelangelo Benvenuto)
(b Empoli, April 1, 1866; d Berlin, July 27, 1924). Italian composer and pianist, active chiefly in Austria and Germany. Much to his detriment as composer and aesthetician, he was lionized as a keyboard virtuoso. The focus of his interests as a performer lay in Bach, Mozart and Liszt, while he deplored Wagner. Rejecting atonality and advocating in its place a Janus-faced ‘Junge Klassizität’, he anticipated many later developments in the 20th century. His interests ranged from Amerindian folk music and Gregorian chant to new scales and microtones, from Cervantes and E.T.A. Hoffmann to Proust and Rilke. Only gradually, during the final decades of the 20th century, has his significance as a creative artist become fully apparent.
Although he considered himself a Tuscan, the family moved to Trieste when he was only a few months old, transplanting him into a cosmopolitan, German-orientated environment.
There followed a period of study in Leipzig (1885–8), where he befriended Delius, Mahler, Henri and Egon Petri and made contact with leading German music publishers. Three years later he took a teaching post at the Helsinki College of Music, where his circle of pupils and friends (the ‘Leskovites’) included Sibelius and the Järnefelt brothers. In 1890, in St Petersburg, he won the Rubinstein Prize for both piano and composition.
The climax of Busoni’s pre-war career as a pianist was probably the 1911 series of six recitals in Berlin devoted to the music of Liszt. Yet acclaim in the concert hall served to diminish his reputation as a composer, and his Bach transcriptions were held in far higher regard than his original works.
During his six-year sojourn in Zürich (from 1915), he gave recitals and masterclasses, occasionally travelling to Italy for concert appearances; Volkmar Andreae entrusted him for a season with the direction of the Tonhalle concerts; he composed Arlecchino and Turandot and completed the libretto of Doktor Faust (when he died, two scenes were left incomplete). Among the many other artists and intellectuals seeking shelter from the war, he made the acquaintance of Joyce and Lenin, Jakob Wassermann and Philip Jarnach.
[Antony Beaumont, Grove Music Online, selected and edited]
"Brendel didn't stand a chance in 1949"
Brendel hatte deshalb 1949 keine Chance.
Hubert Stuppner, Die Neue Südtiroler Tageszeitung, 20 June 2025, reflects upon the death of Alfred Bendel and on the Busoni Competition of 1949. Link
One might assume that in 1949, as a pianist, Alfred Brendel wasn't yet at the level to win first prize at a then relatively unknown competition like the Busoni Competition in Bolzano. However, this is contradicted by the sheer number of recordings and the incredibly broad repertoire that Brendel already mastered at that time. As early asn1955, just a few years after his competition disappointment, VOX released six LPs (later reissued as CDs titled "The Young Brendel") showcasing the young Brendel's astonishing virtuosity: a great deal of Viennese Classical music by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven, but also numerous works by Liszt and modern pieces from Prokofiev to Stravinsky. The 1955 recording of Stravinsky's "Trois Mouvements de Petrouschka," a showpiece for any virtuoso, is virtually unsurpassed in its rhythmic precision, tonal richness, and delightful wit.
For instance, the 1955 recording of Stravinsky's "Trois Mouvements de Petrouschka" is virtually unsurpassed in its rhythmic precision, tonal variety, and playful wit. So what was the 19-year-old candidate lacking a few years earlier at the First Busoni Competition? Little can be gleaned from the press. The correspondent for the "Corriere della Sera," none other than Dino Buzzati, titled his article "The Pianist's Collapse" [Il crollo del pianista] and described the atmosphere with the subtitle "Aria di Corte d'Assise" – "Atmosphere like a jury trial!"
A review of the performances of the 59 competitors and the ranking of the prize winners, with Alfred Brendel in last place, is conspicuously absent. More revealing, however, is a look at the composition of the jury. The four key jurors of the seven-member jury were Michelangeli, Jacques Fevrier, Nikita Magaloff, and Antonino Votto, all exponents of the Italian (Neapolitan) and related French schools, sitting close together and, as can be seen in [a photograph from the time], engaged in lively discussion. The key to understanding the aesthetic judgment they made probably lies in this constellation. The distinctive feature of the Italian-French tradition is the beautiful, sparkling parlando, the cult of touch, and the metronomically regular and cleanly articulated playing.
The Italian piano historian Piero Rattalino described the specific pedagogy of this aesthetic, using the example of his teacher Carlo Vidusso, teacher of Pollini and Claudio Abbado, as follows: “His teaching was based on three principles: a number for each note of the fingering, advancing the study of works at various progressively increasing speeds, and guaranteeing control of tempos by means of a metronome. The metronome even for the Adagio. Vidusso owned 95 of them, from every country and every era. He was not interested in the free musical discourse of the music.” Historically, the leading exponents of the Italian (Neapolitan) school were: Giovanni Maria Anfossi, born in Ancona and trained in Naples, Michelangeli’s only teacher. Also important was Attilio Brugnoli, the teacher of Renzo Silvestri and Alessandro Longo, with whom both Tito Aprea and Antonino Votto studied (both competition jurors for many years). This school also included Vincenzo Scaramuzza, who emigrated to Buenos Aires and taught Daniel Barenboim, Bruno Leonardo Gelber, and Martha Argerich the principles of Neapolitan piano playing.
This piano tradition stood in opposition to the German-Viennese tradition, which disregarded Chopin and practised the principles of the revolutionary, prosodic style of playing launched by Beethoven. Beethoven broke with the Rococo style of superficially rippling and chattering runs and demanded that the pianist "strike sparks from the man's head." He was the one who shifted the focus of pianistic writing to the contrast between loud and soft, slow and fast, vigorous and delicate. To illustrate this, a simple comparison of the interpretations of three versions of the Sonata Op. 111 suffices: first by the Viennese pianist Rudolf Serkin, then by Alfred Brendel, and finally in Michelangeli's interpretation. The prosody, which both Serkin and Brendel take into account, reveals intense emotional movements. Prosody means pressure and counter-pressure, acceleration and deceleration, accelerando and ritardando; it means rushing towards the climax and then calmly emerging from it. This is not the case with Michelangeli, who plays a metronomically smooth, isometric, but emotionally impoverished first movement at A tempo.
Stylistic incompatibilities and musical sensitivities have repeatedly surfaced in the history of competitions. In the famous Brussels competition, where Emil Gilels won, Michelangeli stood no chance before a jury dominated by Polish Jews and Russians. When he competed shortly afterwards in Geneva, where the Frenchman Cortot presided, he had an easy time. Due to the Italian majority of the jurors, the Busoni Competition remained firmly rooted in the neo-Polish-French playing tradition well into the Cambissa era. Brendel therefore had no chance in 1949.
Alessandro Baricco on Galuppi
Michelangeli spalancava radure fra le note di Galuppi
Ss he's gone, Benedetto Michelangeli, in his own way, without warning. From what I understand, there's a one in a billion chance: but if he ends up in the same place where Debussy has been wintering for decades, you know what an encounter. Eternity won't be long enough for those two: they have a whole world of sounds to tell each other, their own stuff, the others have never understood a thing, it's a world that existed only in their ears. If they explain it to each other, just by looking into each other's eyes, you can bet, they won't even need a piano. A look and away.
It's not that I'm exactly a Benedetti Michelangeli fanatic, I couldn't say that, but by dint of reading, I was overcome by that irresistible nostalgia that until a minute before had objectively non-existent - that little bit of sadness that was enough to make me find myself "standing there looking for that record among the records, without finding it, of course, but with the precise sensation that if I hadn't found it I would have gone out and bought it, because if I didn't hear it I would have gone mad.
The record on which he played Galuppi, Galuppi's name was Baldassarre, and he was a Venetian composer, one of those who are almost forgotten now. Born and died in the eighteenth century. He wrote a lot of stuff, and among other things a lot of sonatas for stringed instruments. keyboard, and among the many, one, in C major: and it was the one Michelangeli played. Probably, if he hadn't played it, it would have disappeared into thin air long ago. But, God knows why, he had fished it out of the deck, and played it. And so no one will ever forget it. It starts like a Paradise: I remember that for sure. The beginning leaves you speechless. Reading it, it's music of an insane simplicity, there's absolutely nothing, the left hand playing a banal Alberti bass and the right stringing the notes one after the other, without doubling, just a few timid embellishments here and there, all in Andante tempo (the tempo of Paradiso, in fact). Reading it, you wouldn't give two cents for it. But you have to hear how he played it. He opened it wide. He even played it slower than it should have been, and what he did was let the light pass through. It's incredible what you can achieve if you're only capable of letting the light pass through. He did it with a piano, opening the notes, one by one, like the portholes of a schooner on the open sea. And it's also absurd, if you think about it, because the good Galuppi had never even seen a real piano, and yet with his Steinway, Benedetti Michelangeli took that artisanal detail and opened every note. I don't know how, perhaps he was fiddling with the pedal, perhaps it was just a touch. Of course, I've never heard that sound anywhere else. The fact is that in the end, it's no longer a artisanal detail, it's a clearing, a clearing, like a clearing carved out in the middle of the forest of the world. A salvation. There's something magical about it, I tried to believe, because I've been listening to it for years and searching for the right word to name the nuance of feeling that music conveys, and I've never succeeded. I challenge anyone to do so. I could be wrong, but in my opinion, that word doesn't exist: you can't even tell if it's more on the side of joy or pain. It's a strange thing, something you know but don't know. I mean, nostalgia has something to do with it, but it's not nostalgia. Wonder has something to do with it, but it's not wonder. The only thing you know is that it enchants you, yes, but you don't have a name for that feeling. And this is truly brilliant: playing something for which we haven't yet invented a name. Benedetti Michelangeli did many, but I'll remember him for that acrobatic feat there: in the absolute simplicity of a few elementary notes, saying a name that doesn't exist. Alessandro Baricco
La Stampa 14 June 1995
Sergiu Celibidache (1912-1996)
A few biographical details about the Romanian conductor who would later be soul-mate for ABM
11 July, 1912, Sergiu Celebidachi [note the spelling] was born in Roman, Romania , as one of five siblings. His father, Demostene, an influential cavalry officer, was very musical, and his mother also played music. Six months after his birth, the family moved to Iași —one of Romania's most culturally important cities, with a significant Jewish population and cultural scene. Celibidache therefore learned Yiddish at an early age.
After separating from his family, at age 18 he continued his studies in mathematics, philosophy, and music, which he had begun in Iași, in Bucharest. There, he earned his living primarily as an accompanist at a dance school.
1935-37
After surviving his unpopular military service in Romania, he moved to Paris in 1935 to continue his studies. Heinz Tiessen, a professor at the Berlin Academy of Music, recognised Celibidache's extraordinary musical potential and called him to Berlin, where in 1938 he enrolled at the Berlin Academy of Music.
1942-44
At the end of his studies, Celibidache wrote a doctoral thesis on "Form-creating elements in the compositional technique of Josquin des Prés, the 15th century a Franco-Flemish composer; however, as far as is known, the doctorate was never formally awarded.
1945
And now the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra entered the picture: Wilhelm Furtwängler, the orchestra's previous chief conductor, was banned from conducting after the end of the war until the conclusion of his denazification proceedings. The orchestra, in particular, was won over by the ambitious work of the highly talented young Romanian, appointing Celibidache as its new artistic director in October 1945 (and this collaboration would ultimately result in a total of 414 concerts in Berlin and on tour until 1954).
Tiessen pointed out to Celibidache the problematic musical development of his performances ("you didn't understand anything"). This, as Celibidache later repeatedly emphasized, was the decisive turning point in his development as a conductor. He then initially turned to smaller musical forms, for example by Telemann, as recommended by Tiessen, before venturing back to large symphonic works, including, for the first time in his career, a work by Anton Bruckner, the 7th Symphony.
1949
Celibidache is now a sought-after guest conductor throughout the world, conducting orchestras in Austria, Italy, France, and Central and South America, among others. This year, he is (presumably) offered the direction of the New York Philharmonic, but Celibidache declines for artistic reasons. [I think he called the orchestra "a bunch of gangsters!" (Editor's note)]
1950
Celibidache has undertaken further extensive and successful guest conducting engagements in Central and South America.
1954
After the death of Wilhelm Furtwängler on November 30, the orchestra chose Herbert von Karajan, not Celibidache, as its new chief conductor. And although the disputes between Celibidache and the orchestra had become quite substantial just before this decision, Celibidache did not overcome this humiliation for a long time. It wasn't until 38 years later, in 1992 , that reconciliation and two more appearances at the helm of this orchestra would come.
1958
His first concerts took place with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra with which he remained particularly closely associated for a long time, until 1983.
1963
He eventually became Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Stockholm)'s permanent guest conductor and artistic director in 1963. In addition to concerts in Stockholm, the orchestra also performed concert tours in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Finland, Austria, the Netherlands, and Romania.
1966
In 1966, he returned to the helm of a Berlin orchestra, this time with the Staatskapelle in East Berlin, with whom he also performed in Dresden and Leipzig that year. That same year also saw his first collaboration with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, performing Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, K. 466, in Bologna with the orchestra of the Municipal Theatre.
[But Katia Vendrame states - but with no source - that in 1942 in Milan, the two artists played Ravel's Concerto in G major together.]
1979
On 14 February, 1979, the first concert with the Munich Philharmonic took place (after no fewer than 22 (!!) rehearsals. The programme included the Overture to Mozart's Magic Flute, Death and Transfiguration by Richard Strauss, and the Concerto for Orchestra by Béla Bartók. The concert was a huge success, acclaimed by the audience and the press, and after both sides expressed their desire to continue the collaboration, Celibidache was finally appointed Chief Conductor of the orchestra and General Music Director of the City of Munich in June. This was to be the beginning of a collaboration lasting 17 years.
1987
His first appearance at the International Bruckner Festival in Linz, performing Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 in St. Florian's Abbey Church.
1990
Shortly after the end of the Ceausescu regime in Romania in 1990, Celibidache embarked on a concert tour of his homeland, which was combined with an extensive aid campaign by the orchestra.
1996
On June 1, 3 and 4, 1996, Celibidache's last concerts took place. The Munich Philharmonic's program included Schubert's "Rosamunde" Overture, the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor (with Celibidache's compatriot Dan Grigore), and Ludwig van Beethoven's 2nd Symphony. He then gave a final conducting course at the Schola Cantorum in Paris.
On August 14, Sergiu Celibidache died at the age of 84 in his hometown of Neuville-sur-Essonne, about 90 km south of Paris. He was buried there in the small village cemetery on August 16.