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ALBUMMichelangeli: Essential Piano WorksArturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Albums by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
ALBUMHistorical Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73 "Emperor"Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Prague Symphony Orchestra & Václav Smetáček
ALBUMPiano Masterpieces: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli – Recital, Warszaw-LondonArturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Philharmonia Orchestra & Ettore Gracis
ALBUMLiszt, Grieg, Debussy, Ravel: Piano WorksArturo Benedetti Michelangeli
ALBUMRavel: Piano Concerto in G - Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 4Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Philharmonia Orchestra & Ettore Gracis
ALBUMGrieg: Piano Concerto, Op. 16 - Schumann: Carnevale di Vienna, Op. 26Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Mario Rossi & Orchestra Sinfonica Di Roma Della RAI
ALBUMGrandes Compositores - Chopin - Sonata No. 2Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
ALBUMArturo Benedetti Michelangeli - Scarlatti - BeethovenArturo Benedetti Michelangeli
ALBUMArturo Benedetti Michelangeli Plays Bach, Beethoven, Schumann & BrahmsArturo Benedetti Michelangeli
ALBUMRavel: Piano Concerto in G Major - Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 4Philharmonia Orchestra, Ettore Gracias & Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
ALBUMFrédéric Chopin: Sonata for Piano No. 2 in B-Flat Minor Op. 35 - Ballad No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23 - Fantasy in F Minor and A-Flat Major, Op. 49 - Andante Spianato and Brilliant Polonaise in E-Flat Major, Op. 22Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Artist Playlists
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Essentials
This mercurial Italian pianist trained his perfectionist skills on a select set of major works.
Artist Biography
One of music’s elusive enigmas, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was an obsessive perfectionist, with perhaps the smallest active repertoire of any great pianist. Born in Brescia, Italy, in 1920, his career was interrupted by the Second World War, and then intermittently affected by ill health. Unlike, say, Argerich or Horowitz, Michelangeli was not a pianist who lived in the moment, responding to the audience, venue, or instrument. Whereas they never played the same way twice, Michelangeli constantly strived for a single, perhaps unobtainable ideal. His honing of detail could occasionally become an end in itself, but such was his faultless pianistic mechanism and uncommonly refined ear and touch—he once said that no piano was good enough for Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit (1908)—that the results were sublime more often than they were emotionally detached. Among his finest recordings are his 1948 account of the Bach-Busoni Chaconne (1892), where his liquid sonority and magisterial grandeur are unsurpassed, and his 1957 traversal of concertos by Ravel (G major, 1931) and Rachmaninoff (No. 4, 1941), where his crystalline perfection is matched by his innate poetry. The day before making that concerto recording, Michelangeli gave a solo recital at London’s Royal Festival Hall that was taped but unissued by EMI. It was finally released by Testament in 1996, the year after he died. The fastidious beauty and immaculate poise in works by Schumann and Debussy find him at his transcendent best.
Hometown
Brescia, Italy
Genre
Classical