Maurizio Pollini

Maurizio Pollini (5 January 1942 – 23 March 2024) was an Italian pianist and conductor. He was known for performances of Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and the Second Viennese School, among others. He championed works by contemporary composers, including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, George Benjamin, Roberto Carnevale, Gianluca Cascioli and Bruno Maderna. Several compositions were written for him, including Luigi Nono's ... sofferte onde serene ..., Giacomo Manzoni's Masse: omaggio a Edgard Varèse, and Salvatore Sciarrino's Fifth Sonata. As a conductor he was instrumental in the Rossini revival at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, conducting La donna del lago from a new critical edition in 1981. He also conducted from the keyboard.

Pollini was also a left-wing activist in the 1960s and 1970s, and he remained politically engaged in later life. He maintained some separation between these ideals and his music.

Life and career

1942–early 1960s: Upbringing, studies, and competitions

Pollini was born in Milan in 1942. His father Gino Pollini was an amateur violinist.<ref>The Times Register, 25 March 2024</ref> Gino was among the first architects of Gruppo 7 to bring modern architecture to Italy in the 1930s. His mother Renata Melotti had trained as a pianist and singer.<ref>The Times Register, 25 March 2024</ref> She was a sister of the Italian sculptor Fausto Melotti.<ref name="ABC Classic FM">Template:Cite web</ref>

Pollini studied piano with notable local teacher Carlo Lonati from age seven. Lonati allowed him to play what he loved, he remembered. When Lonati died, his student Carlo Vidusso became Pollini's next teacher.Template:Sfn Pollini remained Vidusso's student from age 13 to 18.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Vidusso trained Pollini strictly at the Milan Conservatory, preparing him to compete.Template:Sfn Pollini also studied composition and conducting there.Template:Sfn

He made his debut in Milan at the age of 15, performing a selection of Chopin's Etudes.<ref>The Times Register, 25 March 2024</ref> In 1957 he took second prize, after Martha Argerich, in the Geneva International Music Competition at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève.Template:Sfn He won both the 1959 International Ettore Pozzoli Piano Competition in SeregnoTemplate:Sfn and the 1960 sixth International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw at the age of 18. He was the youngest of 89 entrants and the first non-Slav to win in the history of the competition.<ref>The Times Register, 25 March 2024</ref> He selected among the most formidable of the possible etudes the Op. 10, No. 10, Op. 25, No. 11, and Op. 10, No. 1, which Template:Ill assessed as qualifying Pollini for "the madhouse or victory".Template:Sfn Arthur Rubinstein, leading the jury, declared "that boy can play the piano better than any of us".<ref name="AR">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Efn

After these successes, Pollini did not perform for one year. He limited his concertizing in the 1960s to study, broadening his musical experience and expanding his pianistic repertoire.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This led to erroneous rumors that he had become a recluse.<ref name="AR2">Template:Cite news</ref> He taped performances of Chopin's Etudes and recorded Chopin's First Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Paul Kletzki for EMI.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He had a "crisis of confidence", as Peter Andry described it, when the Philharmonia offered him a concert series.<ref name="peter andry">Template:Cite book</ref>

He studied with pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli for six months in the early 1960s. Michelangeli's repertoire was select and polished by rigorous practice.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Pollini obtained "a precise technique and emotional restraint".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Some expressed concern that Michelangeli's influence led to Pollini's style becoming "mannered and cold"<ref name="peter andry" /> or "drier, more cerebral".Template:Sfn While known for exceptional technique, Pollini was criticized for emotional conservatism.<ref>Schonberg, Harold. The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present (1987 edition)</ref> John Rockwell summarized Pollini's "hard‐edged and modern" style as one of "coolness, intensity and virtuosity", noting his tonal control and "sheer dexterity".<ref name="NYT1977" />

Mid-1960s–1970s: Early career and musical and political collaboration

Beginning in the mid-1960s, Pollini gave recitals<ref>Jean-Pierre Thiollet, 88 notes pour piano solo, "Solo nec plus ultra", Neva Editions, 2015, p.50. Template:ISBN.</ref> and appeared with orchestras in Europe, the United States, and the Far East. His American debut was in 1968<ref name="Britannica">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> at Carnegie Hall in New York.<ref>The Times Register, 25 March 2024</ref> He first toured Japan in 1974.<ref name="NHK">Template:Cite news</ref> Once wary of becoming pigeonholed as a specialist, especially of Chopin,Template:Sfn he had "clearly avoided that tag" by the 1970s, Rockwell noted while surveying Pollini's discography in its then range from Mozart to Nono.<ref name="NYT1977">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Efn

Especially in the 1960s and 1970s, Pollini was active as a left-wing musician. His collaborative work with Claudio Abbado and Luigi Nono was informed by their shared ideals.<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref> He was also musically and politically associated with Giacomo Manzoni and Template:Ill.Template:Sfn Pollini worked with Nono in such works as Como una ola de fuerza y luz (1972), which mourned the death of Luciano Cruz, a leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement in Chile.Template:Sfn He performed with Abbado at La Scala in Milan in concerts for students and workers, aiming to build a public among them in the spirit that art should be for everybody.<ref name="AR2" /> The two concertized for the Russell Tribunal.Template:Sfn At least one of Pollini's recitals was concluded upon audience unrest and police intervention when he attempted to make a statement about the Vietnam War.

He was able to separate his politics from his musicianship, for example in his work with Karl Böhm.<ref name="Brachmann">Template:Cite news</ref>

File:Maurizio Pollini 75.jpg

Pollini in 1975

Nono wrote ... sofferte onde serene ... for Pollini in 1974–1976. It was a meditative soloistic piece on recent losses among their family and friends. Pollini's 1977 live performance was amplified against a magnetic tape recording of himself. Nono thereby explored pianistic envelope ("Sometimes I cut off the attack, so that the sound manifests as a resonance without time") and the sounds of Venice (where "one constantly hears the sound of bells").Template:Sfn Nono cited an attraction to Pollini's technique in particular. He sought to amplify and project details of Pollini's sound ("certain nuances of his touch"). They worked together for three days in the recording studio at Radio Milano with audio engineer Marino Zuccheri.Template:Sfn The work remained in Pollini's repertoire; he later played it in London at the Southbank Centre's "Fragments of Venice" festival (2007) and in Salzburg (2019).Template:Sfn

Pollini took up Boulez's "weighty" Second Sonata in the 1970s.Template:Sfn In 1977, he played Bartok's Second Concerto under Boulez with the New York Philharmonic. Harold C. Schonberg wrote that he "had not heard a stronger account".Template:Sfn

1980s–2024: Later career and conducting

Pollini also conducted when he played piano concertos such as Mozart's.<ref name="Brachmann" /> He played a "defining role" in the Rossini Opera Festival at Pesaro, conducting La donna del lago from a new critical edition in 1981. The occasion was a "landmark" in the post-war Rossini revival. He was praised for his interpretive insights into Rossini's orchestration, motivic development, and harmony. But he was criticized for his inflexible literalism and quick tempi, which drove Template:Ill to tears. Scholars cited historical evidence and showed him autograph manuscripts to persuade him to allow more ornamentation and rubato, Template:Lang hallmarks, particularly in the elaborate fioritura of cadential passages. He relented only in the final rondò, "Tanti affetti in tal momento", for which Rossini prepared three ossia for particular singers. Pollini insisted that the singers adhere to these sources.Template:Sfn

He tempered this approach somewhat in a 1983 reprise featuring Katia Ricciarelli (Elena), Lucia Valentini Terrani (Malcolm), and Samuel Ramey (Duglas) with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, which Sony recorded.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn For this production, his friend Gae Aulenti stage directed and designed the sets.Template:Sfn

Among those celebrating Webern's 1983 birth centenary in New York and at the Venice Festival of Contemporary Music, Pollini played the Piano Variations.<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Cite news</ref> Celebrating J. S. Bach's 1985 tricentenary, he performed The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I. He later recorded it in 2009.<ref name="Pennock">Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1987, he received the Vienna Philharmonic's Honorary Ring while playing Beethoven's piano concertos with them in New York conducted by Abbado.<ref name="DG Beethoven">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1993–1994, he played his first complete Beethoven sonata cycle in Berlin and Munich. He continued this in New York City, at La Scala, in London, Paris and Vienna.<ref name="DG Beethoven" />

File:BoulezPollini2009.jpg

Pollini with Pierre Boulez in Paris (2009)

He juxtaposed old and new music at the 1995 Salzburg Festival in the "Progetto Pollini" concert series, at Carnegie Hall (2000–2001) in "Perspectives: Maurizio Pollini", and at London's Royal Festival Hall (2010–2011) in the "Project Pollini", a five-concert series ranging from Bach to Boulez and Stockhausen (with Schoenberg's Op. 19 as an encore).Template:Sfn Throughout his career, Pollini championed less popular, often more recent works.<ref name="theguardian.com">Template:Cite news</ref> He financed these projects with the prize money of the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.<ref name="Brachmann" /> On Mozart's 250th birth centenary at the 2006 Salzburg Festival, he changed the second half of the program to Webern's Piano Variations and Boulez's Second Sonata. Some among the audience left at intermission, after the Webern, or during the Boulez.Template:Sfn

Pollini continued politically identifying with the left, although he later questioned some Italian leftists' tactics. In 2010, he spoke out against Silvio Berlusconi,<ref name="theguardian.com"/> concertizing in opposition to constitutional reforms. He offered low-cost, student tickets to his concerts.<ref name="Brachmann">Template:Cite news</ref>

In March 2012, Pollini canceled his US appearances, citing his health.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He toured Central Europe in 2014, performing at the Salzburg Festival<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and debuting at the Rheingau Musik Festival with Chopin's Preludes and Debussy's Preludes, Book I, in the Kurhaus Wiesbaden.<ref name="Blum">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2022, his 80th birthday recital received a four-star award in The Times.<ref>The Times Register, 25 March 2024</ref>

Private life

In 1968 Pollini married Maria Elisabetta Marzotto, known as Marilisa, a pianist from a Milanese family.<ref>The Times Register, 25 March 2024</ref> Maurizio Pollini died on 23 March 2024, aged 82.Template:Sfn<ref>Addio a Maurizio Pollini Template:In lang</ref> His son Template:Ill is a pianist and a conductor.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Recordings

Pollini's first recordings for Deutsche Grammophon (DG) in 1971 included Stravinsky's Trois mouvements de Petrouchka and Prokofiev's Seventh Sonata. They are considered landmarks of twentieth-century piano discography. He recorded Chopin's Etudes, Opp. 10 and 25 in 1972<ref name="Brachmann" /> and Schoenberg's solo piano Template:Lang in 1974 for the same label.<ref name="Dictionary for the Modern Pianist">Template:Cite book</ref> In 2014, he recorded the entire Beethoven piano sonatas cycle.<ref name="DG Beethoven 2014">Template:Cite web</ref> DG celebrated Pollini's 60th birthday (2002) with a 13-CD commemorative edition<ref name="Clements">Template:Cite news</ref> and his 75th (2017) with a complete 58-CD edition.<ref name="DG Complete Recordings">Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards and recognition

In 1996, Pollini received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. In 2001, his recording of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations won the Diapason d'Or. In 2007, Pollini received the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) for his Deutsche Grammophon recording of Chopin's Nocturnes.<ref name="Britannica" /> He was awarded the Praemium Imperiale in 2010,<ref name="Britannica" /><ref name="NHK" /><ref name="PI">Template:Cite news</ref> and entered the Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2012.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Cited sources

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Further reading

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External links

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• Maurizio Pollini interview, (23 October 1997)