Maurizio Pollini | |
|---|---|
 Pollini in 2009 | |
| Born | (1942-01-05)5 January 1942 |
| Died | 23 March 2024(2024-03-23) (aged 82) Milan, Italy |
| Education | Milan Conservatory |
| Occupations |
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| Awards | |
Maurizio Pollini (5 January 1942 – 23 March 2024) was an Italian pianist and conductor. He was known for performances ofBeethoven,Chopin,Debussy, and theSecond Viennese School, among others. He championed works by contemporary composers, includingPierre Boulez,Karlheinz Stockhausen,George Benjamin,Roberto Carnevale,Gianluca Cascioli andBruno Maderna. Several compositions were written for him, including Luigi Nono's... sofferte onde serene ...,Giacomo Manzoni'sMasse: omaggio a Edgard Varèse, andSalvatore Sciarrino's Fifth Sonata. As a conductor he was instrumental in theRossini revival at theRossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, conductingLa donna del lago from a newcritical edition in 1981. He also conducted from the keyboard.
Pollini was also aleft-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.
Pollini was born inMilan in 1942. His fatherGino Pollini was an amateur violinist.[1] Gino was among the first architects ofGruppo 7 to bringmodern architecture to Italy in the 1930s. His mother Renata Melotti had trained as a pianist and singer.[2] She was a sister of the Italian sculptorFausto Melotti.[3]
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 studentCarlo Vidusso became Pollini's next teacher.[4] Pollini remained Vidusso's student from age 13 to 18.[5] Vidusso trained Pollini strictly at theMilan Conservatory, preparing him to compete.[4] Pollini also studied composition and conducting there.[6]
He made his debut in Milan at the age of 15, performing a selection ofChopin's Etudes.[7] In 1957 he took second prize, afterMartha Argerich, in theGeneva International Music Competition at theConservatoire de Musique de Genève.[8] He won both the 1959International Ettore Pozzoli Piano Competition inSeregno[9] and the 1960 sixthInternational Chopin Piano Competition inWarsaw 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.[10] He selected among the most formidable of the possible etudes theOp. 10, No. 10,Op. 25, No. 11, andOp. 10, No. 1, whichPiero Rattalino [it] assessed as qualifying Pollini for "the madhouse or victory".[11]Arthur Rubinstein, leading the jury, declared "that boy can play the piano better than any of us".[12][a]
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.[14] This led to erroneous rumors that he had become a recluse.[15] He taped performances of Chopin's Etudes and recorded Chopin'sFirst Concerto with thePhilharmonia Orchestra underPaul Kletzki forEMI.[16] He had a "crisis of confidence", asPeter Andry described it, when the Philharmonia offered him a concert series.[17]
He studied with pianistArturo Benedetti Michelangeli for six months in the early 1960s. Michelangeli's repertoire was select and polished by rigorous practice.[18][b] Pollini obtained "a precise technique and emotional restraint".[20] Some expressed concern that Michelangeli's influence led to Pollini's style becoming "mannered and cold"[17] or "drier, more cerebral".[13] While known for exceptional technique, Pollini was criticized for emotional conservatism.[21]John Rockwell summarized Pollini's "hard‐edged and modern" style as one of "coolness, intensity and virtuosity", noting his tonal control and "sheer dexterity".[22]
There was ... tension in the air. ... remember the situation in Italy back then. People were ... talking about a possibleFascist coup. ... I ... tried to read a declaration ... when the United States bombedHanoi andHai Phong. Several Italian musicians had signed [it]:Claudio Abbado, Luigi Nono,Manzoni and theQuartetto Italiano, ...Goffredo Petrassi, andLuigi Dallapiccola. ... at the mere sound of the word 'Vietnam', theaudience exploded in a kind of collective delirium, which made it impossible to continue my recital. I made several attempts to read this short statement. This was interrupted by the arrival of the police. Eventually, the piano was closed and that was that.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, Pollini gave recitals[24] and appeared with orchestras in Europe, the United States, and the Far East. His American debut was in 1968[25] at Carnegie Hall in New York.[26] He first toured Japan in 1974.[27] Once wary of becoming pigeonholed as a specialist, especially of Chopin,[13] he had "clearly avoided that tag" by the 1970s, Rockwell noted while surveying Pollini's discography in its then range from Mozart to Nono.[22][c]
Especially in the 1960s and 1970s, Pollini was active as aleft-wing musician. His collaborative work withClaudio Abbado andLuigi Nono was informed by their shared ideals.[28] He was also musically and politically associated withGiacomo Manzoni andLuigi Pestalozza [it].[29] Pollini worked with Nono in such works asComo una ola de fuerza y luz (1972), which mourned the death ofLuciano Cruz, a leader of theRevolutionary Left Movement in Chile.[30] He performed with Abbado atLa 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.[15] The two concertized for theRussell Tribunal.[31] At least one of Pollini's recitals was concluded upon audience unrest and police intervention when he attempted to make a statement about theVietnam War.
He was able to separate his politics from his musicianship, for example in his work withKarl Böhm.[32]
Nono wrote... sofferte onde serene ... for Pollini in 1974–1976. It was a meditativesoloistic piece on recent losses among their family and friends. Pollini's 1977 live performance was amplified against amagnetic tape recording of himself. Nono thereby explored pianisticenvelope ("Sometimes I cut off the attack, so that the sound manifests as a resonance without time") and the sounds ofVenice (where "one constantly hears the sound of bells").[33] 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 therecording studio atRadio Milano withaudio engineer Marino Zuccheri.[34] The work remained in Pollini'srepertoire; he later played it in London at theSouthbank Centre's "Fragments of Venice" festival (2007) and in Salzburg (2019).[35]
Pollini took up Boulez's "weighty"Second Sonata in the 1970s.[36] In 1977, he played Bartok'sSecond Concerto under Boulez with theNew York Philharmonic.Harold C. Schonberg wrote that he "had not heard a stronger account".[37]
Pollini also conducted when he played piano concertos such as Mozart's.[32] He played a "defining role" in theRossini Opera Festival atPesaro, conductingLa donna del lago from a newcritical edition in 1981. The occasion was a "landmark" in the post-war Rossini revival. He was praised for his interpretive insights into Rossini'sorchestration,motivicdevelopment, andharmony. But he was criticized for his inflexible literalism and quicktempi, which droveMartine Dupuy [fr] to tears. Scholars cited historical evidence and showed him autograph manuscripts to persuade him to allow moreornamentation andrubato,bel canto hallmarks, particularly in the elaboratefioritura ofcadential passages. He relented only in the finalrondò, "Tanti affetti in tal momento", for which Rossini prepared threeossia for particular singers. Pollini insisted that the singers adhere to these sources.[38]
He tempered this approach somewhat in a 1983 reprise featuringKatia Ricciarelli (Elena),Lucia Valentini Terrani (Malcolm), andSamuel Ramey (Duglas) with theChamber Orchestra of Europe, whichSony recorded.[38][d] For this production, his friendGae Aulentistage directed anddesigned the sets.[40]
Among those celebratingWebern's 1983 birth centenary in New York and at theVenice Festival of Contemporary Music, Pollini played thePiano Variations.[41] CelebratingJ. S. Bach's 1985 tricentenary, he performedThe Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I. He later recorded it in 2009.[42]
In 1987, he received theVienna Philharmonic's Honorary Ring while playing Beethoven's piano concertos with them in New York conducted by Abbado.[43][44] In 1993–1994, he played his first completeBeethoven sonata cycle in Berlin andMunich. He continued this in New York City, at La Scala, in London, Paris and Vienna.[43]
He juxtaposed old and new music at the 1995Salzburg Festival in the "Progetto Pollini" concert series, atCarnegie Hall (2000–2001) in "Perspectives: Maurizio Pollini", and at London'sRoyal Festival Hall (2010–2011) in the "Project Pollini", a five-concert series ranging from Bach to Boulez and Stockhausen (with Schoenberg'sOp. 19 as an encore).[45] Throughout his career, Pollini championed less popular, often more recent works.[46] He financed these projects with the prize money of theErnst von Siemens Music Prize.[32] OnMozart'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.[47]
Pollini continued politically identifying with the left, although he later questioned some Italian leftists' tactics. In 2010, he spoke out againstSilvio Berlusconi,[46] concertizing in opposition toconstitutional reforms. He offered low-cost, student tickets to his concerts.[32]
In March 2012, Pollini canceled his US appearances, citing his health.[48] He touredCentral Europe in 2014, performing at theSalzburg Festival[49] and debuting at theRheingau Musik Festival with Chopin'sPreludes and Debussy'sPreludes, Book I, in theKurhaus Wiesbaden.[50] In 2022, his 80th birthday recital received a four-star award in The Times.[51]
In 1968 Pollini married Maria Elisabetta Marzotto, known as Marilisa, a pianist from a Milanese family.[52] Maurizio Pollini died on 23 March 2024, aged 82.[53][54] His sonDaniele Pollini [it] is a pianist and a conductor.[55]
Pollini's first recordings forDeutsche Grammophon (DG) in 1971 included Stravinsky'sTrois mouvements de Petrouchka and Prokofiev'sSeventh Sonata. They are considered landmarks of twentieth-century piano discography. He recorded Chopin'sEtudes, Opp. 10 and 25 in 1972[32] andSchoenberg's solo pianoœuvre in 1974 for the same label.[56] In 2014, he recorded the entireBeethoven piano sonatas cycle.[57] DG celebrated Pollini's 60th birthday (2002) with a 13-CD commemorative edition[58] and his 75th (2017) with a complete 58-CD edition.[59]
In 1996, Pollini received theErnst von Siemens Music Prize. In 2001, his recording of Beethoven'sDiabelli Variations won theDiapason d'Or. In 2007, Pollini received theGrammy Award forBest Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) for hisDeutsche Grammophon recording of Chopin'sNocturnes.[25] He was awarded thePraemium Imperiale in 2010,[25][27][60] and entered theGramophone Hall of Fame in 2012.[61]
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