Igor Stravinsky (1882~1971)
K012 _ Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka
00:01 Mov.1 Danse Russe (Russian Dance)
02:32 Mov.2 Chez Pétrouchka (Petrushka's Room)
06:50 Mov.3 La semaine grasse (The Shrovetide Fair)
Piano : Maurizio Pollini
Rec : 1972 Studio, Hamburg
■ Biography
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.
Pollini was born in Milan in 1942. His father Gino Pollini was an amateur violinist. 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. She was a sister of the Italian sculptor Fausto Melotti.
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. Pollini remained Vidusso's student from age 13 to 18. Vidusso trained Pollini strictly at the Milan Conservatory, preparing him to compete. Pollini also studied composition and conducting there.
He made his debut in Milan at the age of 15, performing a selection of Chopin's Etudes. In 1957 he took second prize, after Martha Argerich, in the Geneva International Music Competition at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève. He won both the 1959 International Ettore Pozzoli Piano Competition in Seregno 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. He selected among the most formidable of the possible etudes the "Octave", "Winter Wind", and "Waterfall", which Piero Rattalino assessed as qualifying Pollini for "the madhouse or victory". Arthur Rubinstein, leading the jury, declared "that boy can play the piano better than any of us".
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. This led to erroneous rumors that he had become a recluse. He taped performances of Chopin's Etudes and recorded Chopin's First Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Paul Kletzki for EMI. He had a "crisis of confidence", as Peter Andry described it, when the Philharmonia offered him a concert series.
He studied with pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli for six months in the early 1960s. Michelangeli's repertoire was select and polished by rigorous practice. Pollini obtained "a precise technique and emotional restraint". Some expressed concern that Michelangeli's influence led to Pollini's style becoming "mannered and cold" or "drier, more cerebral". While known for exceptional technique, Pollini was criticized for emotional conservatism. John Rockwell summarized Pollini's "hard‐edged and modern" style as one of "coolness, intensity and virtuosity", noting his tonal control and "sheer dexterity".
In 1968 Pollini married Maria Elisabetta Marzotto, known as Marilisa, a pianist from a Milanese family. Maurizio Pollini died on 23 March 2024, aged 82. He is survived by his son, pianist and conductor Daniele Pollini.
3 окт 2024
