Maurizio Pollini, the eminent Italian pianist whose performances were celebrated for their combination of technique and intellect, has died at 82.
The Milan-born son of an artistic family, Pollini gave his first public recital at the age of 11. In 1960, at 18, he won first prize in the sixth International Chopin Competition in Warsaw; the jury’s chairman, Arthur Rubinstein, remarked, “That boy can play the piano better than any of us.”
After making several Chopin recordings, Pollini withdrew from performing to spend five years studying with Arturo Benedetti Michaelangeli. From the mid-1960s onward, he was an esteemed figure on major concert stages and a prolific recording artist, known for his mastery of standard classical and romantic repertory as well as that of modernist composers.
While lauded for his technique and stylistic range, Pollini struck some critics and listeners as a coldly analytical interpreter. Among his many recordings, those devoted to Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Debussy, Bartók and composers of the Second Viennese School were often rated more highly than discs of 19th-century music – Chopin always excepted.
Late in life, he recorded with his pianist son, Daniele Pollini.
An obituary by Tim Page for The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/03/23/maurizio-pollini-classical-pianist-dead/
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