The virtuoso Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was a perfectionist who preferred the control of the recording studio to the uncertainties of the conceit stage. His legacy is a series of recordings that have set high standards for all musicians in their display of effortless technique and cool intellectual interpretation of the classics.
Michelangeli was born on January 5, 1920, in Brescia, Italy. He began the study of the violin at age three, and added organ study the following year at the Venturi Musical Institute of Brescia. At age ten, he commenced piano studies with Giovanni Maria Anfossi at the Milan Conservatory, from which he received his diploma at age 13. He had no teachers after that time, but continued studies on his own. Under his father’s influence, he briefly left music to study medicine, but decided to return to the piano after a bout of tuberculosis from which he recuperated at the Franciscan monastery at Laverna.
Michelangeli played in several competitions, gaining seventh place at the Ysaÿe Competition in Brussels before winning the first International Piano Competition at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1939. The judges that year included the Polish virtuoso Ignacy Paderewski and the French Chopin specialist, Alfred Cortot. Michelangeli was awarded the first prize unanimously, a highly unusual outcome for any competition. In 1940, he made his debut in Rome, and accepted an appointment as Professor of Piano at the Martini Conservatory in Bologna, Italy, and where he taught until 1945. He then transferred to Bolzano, to be closer to the mountains that he loved.
During World War II, Michelangeli served in the Italian air force and later as a member of the underground anti-fascist resistance. When the war ended, he joined the London Symphony Orchestra as a soloist, and toured the U.S. in 1948. Michelangeli made his Carnegie Hall debut as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, under Dmitri Mitropoulos performing the Schumann piano concerto.
Michelangeli was notoriously eccentric in his concert career, cancelling recitals frequently, and refusing to play on instruments that he regarded as less than perfect. His repertoire included all of the Beethoven sonatas, as well as the complete works of Chopin. For many years he gave no public concerts, except to support student programs such as those of the International Academy, which he founded in Brescia in 1964. Up to 30 students attended the tuition-fee free sessions each summer, among them Martha Argerich and Maurizio POLLINI, both of whom went on to become world-renowned soloists.
Although Michelangeli introduced the music of Arnold SCHOENBERG to Italy, he did not care for music written after Claude DEBUSSY and Maurice RAVEL. His recordings of the latter composers were much praised for their exemplary tone and use of rubato (the shaping of a phrase through the modification of tempo). Although his early recordings are impressive for their exceptional technical fluency, which allowed him complete control over the tone of every note, his work became more austere and intellectual with the passage of time, and has been criticised for being emotionally distant from the listener.
In 1965, Michelangeli moved to Lugano, Switzerland and his leisure hours were spent as a pilot and race car driver. In his later years, he performed only sporadically, and a return to the concert stage in 1988 ended with a heart attack, which he suffered while playing. He died in Lugano on June 12, 1995.
Alan Blackwood
SEE ALSO:
CHAMBER MUSIC; IMPRESSIONISM IN MUSIC
FURTHER READING
Gillespie, John, and Anna Gillespie. Notable 20th-century Pianists, Vol. 2 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5, Sonatas Op. 3 and Op. 2, No. 3; Brahms: Ballades, Variations on a Theme of Paganini; Chopin: Sonata No. 2; Debussy: Preludes Books 1 and 2.