He
lived from 1920 to 1995. Were he alive today, he would be really old,
but not unusually so. His death nineteen years ago perhaps makes his
life seem the remoter and more inaccessible to us in the present, though
he was reclusive enough in life so that the fact of his existence was
probably not apprehended by his contemporaries other than with the
utmost surprise.
His stage presence has been described variously as reserved, imperious, and disdainful; his playing flawless. His hair was red, though this is not apparent in pictures, and seems rather an anomaly against the general bleakness of his dress and playing.
His technique never ceases to astound. Where lesser pianists would have made mistakes and fudged passages, Michelangeli's playing was always clear, decisive, and accurate. The only mistakes one is able to discern in his early recordings can only be realized through repeated listens, and only by straining the ears. People often impute Michelangeli's flawlessness to his aversion to taking risks; but the impression that one gets is that Michelangeli did not appear a risk taker because he could do anything it was possible to do at the keyboard with the greatest facility.
He entered the Ysaÿe International Festival in Brussels in 1938, and came seventh. Emil Gilels and Moura Lympany took the first and second prizes respectively. They were both four years older than Michelangeli, and no doubt had had that much more time for their musical ideas to develop and mature. Even still, Arthur Rubinstein, who was a judge at that competition, remarked that Michelangeli already showed an impeccable technique. In purely technical terms, it is easy to imagine that Michelangeli far surpassed Gilels and Lympany even during that competition, though Gilels himself did not want for technique.
Michelangeli's 1939 performance of Liszt's First Piano Concerto at the Geneva International Piano Competition was brilliant, though his lack of experience was manifest inasmuch as he had trouble coordinating with the orchestra as he neared the exuberant climax. Cortot, who was a judge, declared Michelangeli to be a new Liszt, though some have disagreed with this view, saying that Liszt was more than a virtuoso pianist: he was a composer, and contributed enormously to piano technique, which someone in the capacity of interpreter alone could never match.
The consensus among listeners (nowadays and during his time) seems to be that his Chopin leaves one feeling a little cold. This is perhaps owing to his reluctance to open himself up emotionally to the world, in keeping with his reclusiveness. Many people never even knew that he was married.
He performed Chopin's first Ballade on numerous occasions. Recordings from 1957, 1962, and 1967 can be found on YouTube. They are all flawless (or so near to being flawless that the mistakes do not register as mistakes), but give the impression of being highly practiced. There is no spontaneity in his playing of this Ballade. All three recordings are pretty much identical, except in some small details. (The coda from the 1957 recording is unique in its virtuosity, for instance.) Every phrase, every cadence seems to have been minutely crafted beforehand. Michelangeli does not play the Chopin Ballade, he executes it. Even still, his innate musicality can be glimpsed in his playing in spite of his perfectionism, which is the reason we keep going back to him.
His approach to practice may have contributed to his borderline mechanical playing. He was known to commit a new piece to memory, and make sure he could play through it perfectly and without mistakes before focusing on the music; but that may not apply as a general rule, since his Ravel and Bach-Busoni evince great emotional sophistication and generally a deep connection with the music. Maybe he simply did not like Chopin as much as Rubinstein or Horowitz did; maybe the runaway emotions of the Romantics did not appeal so much to his more serious artistic sensibilities.
David Dubal has remarked that he was best in the earlier works of Beethoven and seemed insecure in Chopin, but that he was "demonic" in such works as the Bach-Busoni Chaconne and the Brahms Paganini Variations. It is necessary to add the Bach-Busoni Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to that list.
Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) was a composer who is far better known today for his ingenious transcriptions for piano of many of Bach's works for other instruments than for his own compositions (although lately Marc-André Hamelin and others are making efforts to revive his and other composers' works). So popular were his transcriptions that some people thought that Bach-Busoni was his surname.
There is only one extant performance by Michelangeli of the Toccata and Fugue, from 1949. Since it is a video, the sound quality is quite a bit inferior to a studio recording's, but the imperfections add to rather than detract from the performance. Michelangeli is flawless, as usual, but he is far less aloof here than he is in Chopin's works. He seems, indeed, to be immersed in the piece. Some of the passagework is so virtuosic that we might not believe such a thing to be possible but for him. Indeed, there are few performances that even come close to this in terms of the raw excitement it affords the listener.
The Chaconne, which is a transcription of the fifth movement, the Ciaconna, of Bach's second Violin Partita, on the other hand, is something that Michelangeli performed relatively frequently throughout his career. Recordings (live and studio) from 1949, 1955, 1966, and 1988 exist. His conception of the piece remains pretty much the same in all these performances. The only differences are in his choice of ossias. He seems to experiment with the final chord, too: sometimes he plays a D major chord, sometimes a D minor.
Perfect though Michengali was, he was not immune to ageing. Indeed, it seems that his technique began to deteriorate as early as the eighties. He was known to have been in poor health throughout his career, and suffered bouts of arthritis in his later years, and his playing in the 1980s was labored and attenuate. Horowitz, by contrast, only really started to show real signs of ageing in the late 1970s, and his performance of Chopin's First Scherzo in the 1985 documentary on him is far better than Michelangeli's 1990 performance in terms of technique alone. Horowitz was seventeen years his senior. (Incidentally, Michelangeli was one of the few contemporary artists whom Horowitz had any regard for as a musician, though he called him "a little meshuggah".) Arthur Rubinstein, though perhaps never regarded as as great a virtuoso as Horowitz and Michelangeli, retained his fine technique and consummate musicality till the very last years of his career. He in fact made an excellent recording of the Chaconne in 1970 - at the age of 83.
One may debate the qualities attributed to Michelangeli's playing and interpretations as much as one likes, but it is probably not be fair to say that he did not love music, as some commentators have said of him. His repertoire was relatively small, true, and he tended to play the same pieces at concerts, but that does not mean that he did not love music: it only means that he was not perhaps terribly comfortable with the life of a performer. He was known to play a whole lot of pieces in private - like Islamey, for instance - and humankind would be truly ennobled if recordings of these pieces existed.
His stage presence has been described variously as reserved, imperious, and disdainful; his playing flawless. His hair was red, though this is not apparent in pictures, and seems rather an anomaly against the general bleakness of his dress and playing.
His technique never ceases to astound. Where lesser pianists would have made mistakes and fudged passages, Michelangeli's playing was always clear, decisive, and accurate. The only mistakes one is able to discern in his early recordings can only be realized through repeated listens, and only by straining the ears. People often impute Michelangeli's flawlessness to his aversion to taking risks; but the impression that one gets is that Michelangeli did not appear a risk taker because he could do anything it was possible to do at the keyboard with the greatest facility.
He entered the Ysaÿe International Festival in Brussels in 1938, and came seventh. Emil Gilels and Moura Lympany took the first and second prizes respectively. They were both four years older than Michelangeli, and no doubt had had that much more time for their musical ideas to develop and mature. Even still, Arthur Rubinstein, who was a judge at that competition, remarked that Michelangeli already showed an impeccable technique. In purely technical terms, it is easy to imagine that Michelangeli far surpassed Gilels and Lympany even during that competition, though Gilels himself did not want for technique.
Michelangeli's 1939 performance of Liszt's First Piano Concerto at the Geneva International Piano Competition was brilliant, though his lack of experience was manifest inasmuch as he had trouble coordinating with the orchestra as he neared the exuberant climax. Cortot, who was a judge, declared Michelangeli to be a new Liszt, though some have disagreed with this view, saying that Liszt was more than a virtuoso pianist: he was a composer, and contributed enormously to piano technique, which someone in the capacity of interpreter alone could never match.
The consensus among listeners (nowadays and during his time) seems to be that his Chopin leaves one feeling a little cold. This is perhaps owing to his reluctance to open himself up emotionally to the world, in keeping with his reclusiveness. Many people never even knew that he was married.
He performed Chopin's first Ballade on numerous occasions. Recordings from 1957, 1962, and 1967 can be found on YouTube. They are all flawless (or so near to being flawless that the mistakes do not register as mistakes), but give the impression of being highly practiced. There is no spontaneity in his playing of this Ballade. All three recordings are pretty much identical, except in some small details. (The coda from the 1957 recording is unique in its virtuosity, for instance.) Every phrase, every cadence seems to have been minutely crafted beforehand. Michelangeli does not play the Chopin Ballade, he executes it. Even still, his innate musicality can be glimpsed in his playing in spite of his perfectionism, which is the reason we keep going back to him.
His approach to practice may have contributed to his borderline mechanical playing. He was known to commit a new piece to memory, and make sure he could play through it perfectly and without mistakes before focusing on the music; but that may not apply as a general rule, since his Ravel and Bach-Busoni evince great emotional sophistication and generally a deep connection with the music. Maybe he simply did not like Chopin as much as Rubinstein or Horowitz did; maybe the runaway emotions of the Romantics did not appeal so much to his more serious artistic sensibilities.
David Dubal has remarked that he was best in the earlier works of Beethoven and seemed insecure in Chopin, but that he was "demonic" in such works as the Bach-Busoni Chaconne and the Brahms Paganini Variations. It is necessary to add the Bach-Busoni Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to that list.
Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) was a composer who is far better known today for his ingenious transcriptions for piano of many of Bach's works for other instruments than for his own compositions (although lately Marc-André Hamelin and others are making efforts to revive his and other composers' works). So popular were his transcriptions that some people thought that Bach-Busoni was his surname.
There is only one extant performance by Michelangeli of the Toccata and Fugue, from 1949. Since it is a video, the sound quality is quite a bit inferior to a studio recording's, but the imperfections add to rather than detract from the performance. Michelangeli is flawless, as usual, but he is far less aloof here than he is in Chopin's works. He seems, indeed, to be immersed in the piece. Some of the passagework is so virtuosic that we might not believe such a thing to be possible but for him. Indeed, there are few performances that even come close to this in terms of the raw excitement it affords the listener.
The Chaconne, which is a transcription of the fifth movement, the Ciaconna, of Bach's second Violin Partita, on the other hand, is something that Michelangeli performed relatively frequently throughout his career. Recordings (live and studio) from 1949, 1955, 1966, and 1988 exist. His conception of the piece remains pretty much the same in all these performances. The only differences are in his choice of ossias. He seems to experiment with the final chord, too: sometimes he plays a D major chord, sometimes a D minor.
Perfect though Michengali was, he was not immune to ageing. Indeed, it seems that his technique began to deteriorate as early as the eighties. He was known to have been in poor health throughout his career, and suffered bouts of arthritis in his later years, and his playing in the 1980s was labored and attenuate. Horowitz, by contrast, only really started to show real signs of ageing in the late 1970s, and his performance of Chopin's First Scherzo in the 1985 documentary on him is far better than Michelangeli's 1990 performance in terms of technique alone. Horowitz was seventeen years his senior. (Incidentally, Michelangeli was one of the few contemporary artists whom Horowitz had any regard for as a musician, though he called him "a little meshuggah".) Arthur Rubinstein, though perhaps never regarded as as great a virtuoso as Horowitz and Michelangeli, retained his fine technique and consummate musicality till the very last years of his career. He in fact made an excellent recording of the Chaconne in 1970 - at the age of 83.
One may debate the qualities attributed to Michelangeli's playing and interpretations as much as one likes, but it is probably not be fair to say that he did not love music, as some commentators have said of him. His repertoire was relatively small, true, and he tended to play the same pieces at concerts, but that does not mean that he did not love music: it only means that he was not perhaps terribly comfortable with the life of a performer. He was known to play a whole lot of pieces in private - like Islamey, for instance - and humankind would be truly ennobled if recordings of these pieces existed.
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