Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli: Kraków, 1955

This information was generously sent to me by Ди́на, Dina/ Diana (Russian Federation), who transcribed the extracts in English.

After a long break, Michelangeli's first appearance was in Warsaw as juror during the

5th Chopin Festival (22 February-21 March, 1955). He resigned in protest, as Vladimir Ashkenazy, who he believed should have won, finished second to Polish pianist Adam Harasiewicz (aged 23) by a small margin. The competition ran 21 February to 20 March 1955, and the prize was 30,000 zlotys. Competitors were accommodated in the Hotel Polonia, where 70 practice pianos were installed.

Dmitry Paperno (1929-2020), a Soviet participant, took 6th place. Much later, he wrote a book (Notes of a Moscow pianist [1998])

'The youngest in the jury were the beautiful Flora Guerra Vial (1920-1993, Chile; she had studied with Rosita Renard) and the strange, reserved Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. All we knew about the latter was that he had received the seventh prize in Brussels in 1938, when Emil Gilels won first and Yakov Flier took third place. 

After the official ending, all the participants who remained in Poland were entertained with a trip to old Kraków, one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. There Michelangeli repeated his Warsaw recital programme, although he had a temperature and the concert had to be delayed one hour…

Again, as in Warsaw, the audience was bewitched. After the concert, the ovation did not quieten down for about fifteen minutes. Suddenly, responding to the audience, he sat down at the piano and repeated as an encore Brahms’ Paganini Variations with the same degree of brilliance and perfection. 

At this, Oborin finally admitted, “Yes, this young man can play the piano,” and from his lips such praise meant a lot.

(Lev Nikolayevich Oborin was a Soviet and Russian pianist, composer and pedagogue. He was the winner of the first International Chopin Piano in 1927).

At one point in his book, Paperno mentions that in the "green room" 'a big bottle of valerian tincture (a popular European sedative) sat on the table; we were told that it was empty by the end of each day".  He also notes that at one point he and Askenazy ran into ABM in the corridor of the hotel. "What do you think about a Rachmaninoff's fourth concerto?" he asked us.  I do not recall how Vova [diminutive for Ashkenazy's first name answered.  As for me, at the time I took great interest in this music, and said so, to his obvious pleasure. Only several years later, when his amazing recording became available in Moscow, did I recall this conversation.