Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli – 1920-1995
By Roberta Pili | December 14th, 2008 | Category: Featured pianists “The Immortals” | 3 commentsContinuing in featuring great pianists among the “Immortals” we want to pay homage to another excellent, unique and inimitable artistic personality: Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.
What characterized the particular style of playing and interpretation that made Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli so unforgettable?
He was obsessed with technical perfection and totally exact reproduction of the score.
His devotion to the music was incredibly deep, it is known that he spent hours and hours on his practicing sessions.
I had my first impression of Benedetti Michelangeli when I was a student at the music conservatory of my home town Cagliari. My father told me a lot about this pianist, trying to motivate me to practice more like he did.
I first listened to some of his recordings, I remember to be quite impressed about his Brahms-Paganini Variations and Bach-Busoni Chaconne. Later I literally admired his recording of Ravel Piano Concerto G Major and Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto G Minor No.4 Op.40.
I thought first that his interpretations were too polite, or even unemotional, because of the exact technique and perfection. But I was able to discover soon his real signature: his beautiful and incomparable singing tone.
When playing a melodic phrase or a cantilena he let sing the piano, with his noble touch and his high-class art of making music.
Don´t forget that Benedetti Michelangeli had a deep knowledge of the instrument, he knew every detail about the piano action and he was rigorous in demanding a perfect calibration of the keyboard as well as accurate voicing. Those requirements about the piano are always necessary to grant a professional performance to a pianist, and that is what he also consequently did.
I wish I would have had the opportunity to hear him live, but it didn’t come to it, unfortunately. I can imagine how powerful and hypnotizing his performances have been for the audience. He was certainly an influential personality as a pianist and musician.
By all means his spirit of total sacrifice to the music was exemplary and his being a pianist was more than a profession, it was his life.
My all time favorite pianists are: Michelangeli Benedetti, Sviatoslav Richter and Alexis Weissemberg.
I am looking for some kind of biography of Michelangeli Benededetti, which relates to to his practice methods.
I am wondering for instance if Michelangeli Benedetti first focuses on the technique by practicing the musical composition to death then once he mastered the technique did he then focus or phrasing etc…
When I see his videos on “Youtube”, playing for example Scarlatti, every movements of his body appeared to be perfectly orchestrated, his position vis a vis of the piano, the level of his hands in reference to the keyboard, his pedal actions, his incredible focus on performing the repertoire, even if it is the thousand time he played the same piece. When he Plays Chopin, he obviously does not let his emotions rob him of playing the piece, nor is he encline to cheapen the interpretation so that he would please the croud at hand, every segment of the Chopin piece fits perfectly, without too much use or mis use of the “Rubatto”. He also was such a perfectionist that not only his playing was to be perfect, but the Piano had to be in perfect condition as well.
I know that M Pollini trained with him and I don’t know how to get in touch with him to get more details.
David
David,
Thanks for posting your interesting comment.
Your mentioned favorite pianists are a very good choice. Benedetti Michelangeli, Richter and Weissenberg, three completely different artistic personalities who left a “personal” message to all pianists.
We all can learn quite a lot from them.
You have a keen mind by asking your questions about Benedetti Michelangeli´s practicing.
I personally believe that Michelangeli did not have a special focus on technique or phrasing or sound, or even interpretation. He was compelling every detail in once, because technique is an instrument to create phrasing in music, when you are phrasing you are producing a certain sound, and developing all those details you are finally defining the interpretation.
There is no special secret about piano technique, all great pianists had one thing in common: they knew their body very well, mostly they knew very well how to use it by playing!
Practicing means training your body (healthy body) to serve the music written by the composer.
The ultimate piano technique is in our brain, as also Ferruccio Busoni said.
And a well-working piano technique requires a piano in perfect mechanical condition…
Thank you for tagging this video clip as well as your response.
I did learn to play this sonata (not nearly as well as this interpretation) . What I find very interesting with Benedetti’s interpretation is that the Sonata tempo is” Allegro”, he plays it very fast but the main theme still sounds like it is “Allegro” don’t know how he does it???
If you compare Michelangeli’s interpretation of this sonata, with the one played by Horowitz, Michelangeli uses both pedals (as seen in the tape) very judisiously which dramatically increases the dynamic range of the piece from quiet to loud. In contrast, Horowitz plays this Scarlatti sonata or any other sonata by Scarlatti without using any pedals, and in contrast the interpretation sounds flat . Also when Michelangeli crosses his arms to play with the left index finger the higher notes, he still is able to keep the legato between the left index finger and the ensuing notes played by the right hand as if this section was played with one hand. I don’t know how he does it at that tempo? (They both use Steinway piano).
Anyway these are my observations
David