top of page
Search

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli: Hungarian début 1940

  • Douglas Cairns
  • Dec 17, 2025
  • 1 min read

Olaszországban feltünt az "uj Liszt Ferenc"


Pesti Hírlap 1 September 1940


'The "new Liszt Ferenc" appeared in Italy. At the beginning of the summer, a report appeared in the Pesti Hirlap about the musical events of the festive games in Florence. The writer of the report, Countess Ceruttiné Paulay Erzsi (gróf Ceruttiné Paulay Erzsi, a Hugrarian actress married to Italian ambassador Count Vittorio Cerrutti) dedicated extremely warm lines to the praise of an 18-year-old Italian pianist, Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli. "Let us remember this name well," she wrote, "because the pianist we have been waiting for for years has arrived!" Other Italian and foreign press voices also confirm that a completely extraordinary phenomenon has appeared in the field of musical performing arts. This year, our audience will also get to know the young artist, the great winner of the Zurich [sic] piano competition two years ago; whom the great Cortot directly compared to Liszt Ferenc. In December, Benedetti-Michelangeli will organise a debut evening.


More detail in the WAR YEARS page

Recent Posts

See All
New book on Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli

[Posted on the 5 January, the offical date of ABM's birth, though he once claimed it was in the first hour of the 6th!] I've recently seen that a new book on the pianist, I concerti di Arturo Benedett

 
 
Beethoven's last, Michelangeli's first,

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli gave his first performance of Sonata No. 32 in C minor Op.111 on 29 January 1937 in Brescia. Of a later performance, 'we read in the Popolo di Brescia  by critic Antonio

 
 
Benedetti Michelangeli and the Honey Pot

I was very struck by this detail of ABM's high-handed manner. Cord Garben, a conductor and pianist who doubled as Michelangeli’s record producer for Deutsche Grammophon, was part of Michelangeli’s inn

 
 
bottom of page