Three piano giants were born today
NewsArturo Benedetti Michelangeli, b. Brescia, January 5, 1920 (d. Lugano, 1995)
Alfred Brendel, b Wizemberk, Cz, 5 January 1931
Maurizio Pollini, b Milano, 5 January 1942, d there March, 23, 2024
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Interesting factoid, as all three played with icy, wintry detachment.
I would say Michelangeli’s playing was the opposite of icy, the most powerful, earthy, fiery sound imaginable. Pollini also had a very powerful sound, but often harsh, never graceful or delicate. Brendel is completely different, in my opinion much weaker technically than Michelangeli and Pollini, but has great sensitivity and subtlety.
Try Brendel’s traversal of Schubert Gb Impromptu for size.
I don’t recognise this description of Alfred Brendel https://youtu.be/Bi4hpkvXahg?si=JPnIRQ1uK-g6aR0B
You obviously listen with different ears to me.
People often parrot this when they have read it elsewhere but have not spent time actually attending the performances of these players. It’s written all over YT by armchair critics who can hardly find middle C. Having heard all 3 in the flesh, and as a professional musician myself, I can assure you that the last thing I associate with any of them is icy detachment.
Unfortunately, for Pollini you should also include (d. Milano, 2024)
It’s certainly worth noting that Maurizio Pollini died on March 23, 2024.
Happy Birthday Maestro Brendel!
Don‘t forget Nikolay (or Nicholas) Medtner, b. Moscow, 1880; d. London, 1951. He has been dead for a while, but he was not a bad pianist, and his music still has its admirers.
Brenden’s Schubert Impromptu Ab is my favorite.
How do you know? Or do you reall mean on this same day.
Happy birthday, Herr Brendel! And thank you for your profound artistry and your wonderful wit — in music as in words.
Interesting, if they were born today how are they already giants?
Is your middle name Pedantic…?
All 3 were great in their day. Brendel, especially, is my all time favorite.
It’s certainly too early to know if someone born today will turn out to be a piano giant.
5th Jan also the day Pierre Boulez died .
Interesting how reactions to artists are so individual.
Michelangeli I wish I had heard live and treasure his recordings.
Pollini I heard many times in his prime and adored. Play his recordings frequently.
Brendel I heard live a few times and instantly forgot, though I could not fault the playing per se, just bland… nor do I play his recordings much.
I share a birthday with Rubinstein, whom many adore. He’s the definition of icy detatchment to me, and having tried many times to engage with recordings, I now avoid at all costs.
Yes, I know I am probably missing something great, but I just can’t like it no matter how hard I try. My problem, I know. Awaiting the inevitable vicious replies.
Rubinstein in performance, rather than recordings, was fun to hear and watch. My grandfather took me to a recital when I was a young boy, and I recall Rubinstein as short man bouncing up and down as he played.
Appreciation of an artist is in the ear of the listener. As this thread has shown there are inevitably differing views. One who never appreciated Brendel was the great American virtuoso Earl Wild. In his amusing but fascinating autobiography A Walk On The Wild Side, he spends three pages on Brendel, suggesting those in the profession who called him Brendull were correct!!
Born today? That’s some
prediction!
What an astonishing coincidence. Brendel is also a poet and an author.
I heard all three live: P and M once, B many times.
I heard Pollini way too late in his career – it was a sad occasion for me. I revere and will remember him forever for his recordings of Op 109 and D 845.
Brendel was the perfect interpreter of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert for me. Just the right amount of flexibility and expressivity while retaining an idiomatic classical style. His spirit lives on via his pupil Paul Lewis.
Michelangeli was on another plane: playing of exquisite sensitivity and aristocracy. I heard him play the Ravel G Major with Celibidache – unforgettable. And his 1970s DG recordings of Chopin Mazurkas and Debussy Preludes will never be surpassed.
The only other pianists whom I heard live that I consider comparably ‘great’ are Gilels and Richter.
Glenn Gould – of course – is also right up there with the angels. It seems fitting that his Bach continues to travel through interstellar space on the Voyager spacecraft.
Michelangeli never played a wrong note, unlike the other two.
All three are eternal, shining stars in the firmament; each had his own unique character and mode of interpretation; as always in such matters, it’s futile to debate whether one or another is better or worse.
Michelangeli’s recording of Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto and Ravel’s G major Piano Concerto is stunning; Pollini’s recording of the Chopin E minor Piano Concerto is a miracle of expressive delicacy and Brendel’s early Schubert and Beethoven recordings for Vox are legendary (not in any way denigrating his more recent prodigious Philips recordings).
All three excelled in other repertoire but these recordings (the Pollini dating from 1960, the Michelangeli from 1957, the Brendel about the same time) came out when I, as a young teenager, started to explore the classics. Now, 65 years later, I still listen to them with wonderment. Happily, we still have Alfred Brendel with us, but let’s be thankful that all three have left rich recorded legacies to delight future generations.
It would be interesting to speculate on which three pianists of today (say, under 30 now) might, in their turn, eventually join these three in the Pantheon.
I’d add Pollini’s Chopin’s Ballads and Schubert’s Cm Sonata, both on DG, to his best recordings.