Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli: Ravel

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. 'Of all the great pianists whom I encountered, he was the most demanding and the most frustrating. It required nerves of steel on the part of Victor Olof and me to keep the show on the road. Nor were our anxieties eased by the presence of a conductor by the name of Ettore Gracis, who was brought along by Michelangeli but who was unknown to any of us.' The piano had been taken apart and 'Michelangeli himself stood by, a menacing figure, dressed all in black and sucking his teeth (...). We had brought his own piano from Switzerland at vast expense. With the piano came his ubiquitous Japanese tuner...' He spiked the hammer felts furiously to achieve the brightness of sound for which Michelangeli was famous. 'The rehearsals gave us some worrying moments. He was in a bad mood, constantly pacing round and round. He soon found some of the orchestral detail not to his liking. But the recordings were made and, in the event, our fears proved groundless. Gracis made a decent accompaniment and the magic of Michelangeli's playing convinced everyone in the studio that day that here indeed was music-making of the highest order.'

​Peter Andry may have misremembered the tuner on this occasion. The British press of 1957 reportied that "Michelangeli has brought the instrument from Hamburg at a transit cost of around £300. Michelangeli brings his own tuner with him -a dynamic little man with the head of a sage. His name is Tallone."

Daily News, 25 February 1957.