Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995)
Competitions
AMB was placed second in two national competitions, in Genoa in 1936 and in Florence/Firenze in 1937. In May 1938, at the age of eighteen, Michelangeli began his international career by entering the Ysaÿe International Festival in Brussels, Belgium, where he finished seventh.
A brief account of the competition, at which Emil Gilels took first prize and Moura Lympany second.
'As always happens in these cases, since the superiority of the twenty-two-year-old Gilels could not be disputed, the other positions were contested. Many critics believed that the eighteen-year-old Benedetti Michelangeli had been penalised, and it was even insinuated that the Italian juror Carlo Zecchi had given his compatriot a very low score (jealousy of the rising star?) The second-place finalist, the English woman Moura Lympany, recounted that Benedetti Michelangeli had encountered serious difficulties with the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Jean Absil, unpublished, which the 12 finalists had to perform after two weeks of study. Arthur Rubinstein, who was part of the jury, says simply that "Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, the famous Italian artist, gave an unsatisfactory performance at the time, although he already showed that he possessed an impeccable technique"' (Piero Rattolino)
​
In the final on 29 May, 1938), ABM played:
Edvard Grieg Concerto in A minor op. 16
Giuseppe Martucci Thème avec variations
Fryderyk Chopin Scherzo n. 2 in B flat minor op. 31
Fryderyk Chopin Etude in C sharp minor op. 10/4
Claude Debussy Reflets dans l'eau (Images I)
Franz Liszt Polonaise n. 2 in E major
Charles Scharrès Scherzo Fantastique
Orchestre Symphonique de l'INR, dir. Franz André
A year later, he won the first prize in the Geneva International Music Competition, where he was acclaimed as "a new Liszt" by pianist Alfred Cortot, a member of the judging panel, which was presided over by Ignacy Jan Paderewski.
​
8 July, 1939: Geneva Conservatory [?], Geneva, Switzerland. The Winner’s Concert was broadcast on radio.
Liszt: Piano Concerto No.1 in E-flat major, S.124
– Ernest Ansermet / Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Upon winning the competition, Benito Mussolini gave Michelangeli a teaching position at the Martini Conservatory in Bologna, Italy.​
​
Michelangeli could have attended the advanced course taught by Alfredo Casella at the Santa Cecilia in Rome. In Tremezzo, on Lake Como, there were summer courses taught by Artur Schnabel. But he attended neither. Culturally, he was behind the times.
(Piero Rattalino)
19 year old Arturo with Ernest Ansermet, July 1939
Debussy, Images
In Brussels 1938, Michelangeli played a movement of Images. His final recital in Hamburg 7 May, 1993 would include Images, which he also recorded for DG in 1971.
Images is a suite of six compositions for solo piano by Claude Debussy. They were published in two books/series, each consisting of three pieces. The first book was composed between 1901 and 1905, and the second book was composed in 1907.
​
Book 1 (L. 110)
"Reflets dans l'eau" (Reflections in the water) in Dâ™ major
"Hommage à Rameau" (Tribute to Rameau) in G♯ minor
"Mouvement" (Movement) in C major
Book 2 (L. 111)
"Cloches à travers les feuilles" (Bells through the leaves) in the key of B whole-tone (the middle section is in E major)
"Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut" (And the moon descends on the temple that was) in E minor
"Poissons d'or" (Goldfish) in F♯ major​​​
Debussy, Images
​The pianist Marguerite Long, a contemporary of Debussy, said that the composer referred to the opening motif of "Reflets dans l'eau" as “a little circle in water with a little pebble falling into it.”
"Hommage à Rameau" is a sarabande - a slow, stately 18th-century dance form - honouring the memory of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), the great French baroque composer, especially of harpsichord music and opera. Roger Nichols has written: The central Hommage à Rameau, while outwardly placid and monumental, partakes of more traditional rhetorical structures and of the effortless internal dynamism that is so much a part of the genius of Rameau, ‘without any of that pretence towards German profundity, or to the need of emphasizing things with blows of the fist’, as Debussy put it when reviewing a performance of the first two acts of Rameau’s Castor et Pollux in 1903—which possibly inspired his piece, although searches for direct quotations from the earlier composer have so far proved fruitless.
​
"Cloches à travers les feuilles" was inspired by the bells in the church steeple in the village of Rahon in Jura, France.
Debussy first heard Javanese musicians at the Paris Universal Exposition and the sounds of the gamelan they played stayed with him, surfacing in the allusions to the instrument in the present piece. Writing about Java in 1913, he said, “There was once, and there still is, despite the evils of civilisation, a race of delightful people who learnt music as easily as we learn to breathe. Their academy is the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind in the leaves, thousands of tiny sounds which they listen to attentively without ever consulting arbitrary treatises.” The bells of the title are initiated in the first two measures by way of a whole tone scale, from which the entire piece is constructed. The simplicity of this opening belies a predominant complexity of intertwining parts that requires the music be written on three staves. A middle episode of pianistic brilliance contrasts strongly with the exotic, otherworldly sonorities of the first and last sections.
​
"Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut" (And the moon descends on the temple that was) was dedicated to Louis Laloy. The name of the piece, which evokes images of East Asia, was suggested by Laloy, a sinologist. The piece is evocative of Indonesian gamelan music, which famously influenced Debussy.
​
"Poissons d'or" was probably inspired by an image of a golden fish in Chinese lacquer artwork or embroidery, or on a Japanese print. Other sources suggest it may have been inspired by actual goldfish swimming in a bowl, though the French for goldfish is 'poisson rouge' (red fish). Or this piece, Roger Nichols has written: ‘Poissons d’or’ charts the imagined swoops and twitches of two large carp as featured on a Japanese plaque in black lacquer, touched up with mother-of-pearl and gold, that hung on the wall of Debussy’s study. Here we do indeed find him enjoying ‘the most recent discoveries in harmonic chemistry’, and taking the static ‘well motif’ from [Debussy's opera] Pelléas et Melisande and investing it with piscine acrobatics.'
​
Recordings
​
November-December 1939: Milan, Italy (Studio Recordings | Mono) for EMI/La Voce del Padrone (His Master's Voice)
Marescotti: Fantasque
➢ Side 1/1 | (1939-11-?? or 1939-12-??) | 2BA 3533-? | M
– HMV DB 5354 -> Warner 0 825646 154883 [“1941”]
– HMV DB 5354 -> EMI Italiana 7243 5 67041 2 [“1941”]
Granados: Spanish Dance in E minor, Op.37 No.5 (Andaluza)
Chopin: Mazurka in A minor, Op.68 No.2
Chopin: Waltz in A-flat major, Op.69 No.1
​
December 1939 – January 1940: Milan, Italy (Studio Recordings | Mono) for EMI
Grieg: Lyriske Smaastykker/Lyric Pieces in G minor, Op.47 No.5 (Melankoli), in E major, Op.68 No.5 (Bådnlåt/Cradle Song)
Chopin: Scherzo No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.31
➢ Side 1/2 | (1939-12-?? or 1940-01-??) | 2BA 3618-? | M
Side 2/2 | (1939-12-?? or 1940-01-??) | 2BA 3619-? | M
– HMV DB 5355 -> Warner 0 825646 154883 [“1941”]
– HMV DB 5355 -> EMI Italiana 7243 5 67041 2 [“1941”]
​
(See Christian Johansson for the documentation)
​
'Among other items, Spendiarow, Wiegenlied op. 3 n. 2 was recorded on 14 June 1942, and Tomeoni, Allegro on 22 January 1943 for the German company Telefunken. Alexander Spendjarov's composition (indicated in the table with the German spelling) is a new entry in Michelangeli's repertoire. His Wiegenlied/Berceuse was widely performed, although Michelangeli's recording is not supported by other evidence. Its failure to be published would not be surprising, both because he was an Armenian, well-known as a conductor and active in the Soviet Union until the year of his death (1928), and therefore by then a declared enemy of both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and because of the undisguised presence of Jewish elements in the titles of his compositions. However, the title appears in the list of Telefunken matrices preserved at the Warner headquarters in Hamburg.
​
'As for Tomeoni, it is undoubtedly Pellegrino Tomeoni (1721 - 1816), as indicated on the record label, not his son Florido, as hypothesised in other discographies (Biosa 2003, pp. 129-194; Rattalino 2006, pp. 117-151). The Allegro is the Post comunio in G major from the manuscript preserved in the archive of the Convent of La Verna, published some time ago with other organ pieces by the composer from Lucca. Michelangeli often visited the Sanctuary of Chiusi della Verna during the years of his advanced courses in Arezzo between 1952 and 1965, but he had already visited the place where St. Francis received the stigmata, during a period of convalescence that had strengthened his Franciscan faith. The concealment of the original title of the piece may be a reference to Michelangeli's notorious reserve on matters of religious faith.' (Alessandro Cecchi, University of Pisa)
​
In the Chopin: Berceuse in D flat major, Op. 57 (20 January 1943), 'Michelangeli plays the right-hand melody at the beginning slightly after the left for emotional effect and generously uses rubato to shape the phrases. In fact, this is a surprisingly free performance, more like an improvisation, in which Michelangeli slows the tempo at will. ' (Jonathan Summers, here observing a feature which the pianist would employ thought his career, one occasionally thought anachronistic for a musician who claimed to give an unvarnished account of the music)
​
James Methuen-Campbell has described the disc of the Berceuse as 'one of the finest interpretations of this work ever captured in recording. His use of rubato here is charming, and the whole performance is characterised by refined emotion, though hsi style is very relaxed.'
​
'Between the first recordings for HMV in 1939 and the Telefunken discs, Michelangeli set down his first major work, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C major Op. 2 No. 3, for HMV in Milan in 1941. This is a wonderful performance from the twenty-one year old Michelangeli, aristocratic and sublime from the opening, a combination of controlled powerful virtuosity and playing of the most lyrical poise. His control of the dynamics is caught well by the recording engineers and in the Adagio, although he plays with a sweet and beautiful tone, the movement never becomes cloying whilst the tempo is perfectly maintained. Michelangeli’s dexterity in the final Allegro assai is remarkable and whereas many pianists give a feeling of a struggle to maintain their opening tempo when the semiquavers (sixteenth notes) appear in the fifth bar, Michelangeli sails ahead unimpeded.'
(Jonathan Summers)
​
The difficulty of locating verifiable recording ledgers for Michelangeli’s Milanese solo piano sessions for La Voce del Padrone (His Master’s Voice) and Telefunken has made the identification of precise recording venues and dates a confusing and uncertain undertaking. The recording dates reproduced in the accompanying documentation for this Naxos release are the result of the most recent research carried out by the Italian discographer on Michelangeli’s recordings, Angelo Scottini. The matrix numbers of the published recordings of the Berceuse and the Mazurka No. 25 suggest that these were recorded later, on 20 January 1943. The exact venues for the solo piano recordings on this recording are not known, though there is anecdotal evidence that some took place at the Conservatorio Verdi.​​
La Verna
​
​Michelangeli spent a year (late 1930s?) at the Laverna / La Verna Monastery, apparently with the intention of becoming a Franciscan Brother.
It was in the earliest years of the thirteenth century that one of the most important Franciscan sanctuaries was built in the Tuscan Apennines. Standing on Mount Verna, which Saint Francis of Assisi chose as its location, the monastic complex is today the end-point of pilgrimages from every corner of the world. It all started when Francis met Count Orlando Cattani, the local feudal lord, who was persuaded to donate the mountain of La Verna to the friar.
​
The sanctuary's location, standing on a cliff amidst the greenery of the Casentino woods, makes it one of the most beautiful in Italy, and its close connection to Saint Francis makes it one of the most significant. Even Dante wrote admiringly of it, when in Paradiso XI (106-108) he refers to it as a crudo sasso (naked crag) and recounts the story of the final seal, the stigmata that Francis received (on 17 September, 1224).
