Brahms - Michelangeli, Ballade Op.10 No. 1 in D minor

(Lugano, 1981)

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (January 5, 1920 June 12, 1995) was an Italian classical pianist. He has been regarded as among the most commanding and individual piano virtuosos of the 20th century, among names such as Horowitz and Richter. Along with Ferruccio Busoni, he is often considered the most important Italian pianist.

Born in Brescia, Italy, he began music lessons at the age of three, initially with the violin, but quickly switched to the piano. At ten he entered the Milan Conservatory. In 1938, at age eighteen, he began his international career by entering the Ysaÿe International Festival in Brussels, Belgium, where he placed seventh (a brief account of this competition, at which Emil Gilels took first prize, is given by Arthur Rubinstein, who was one of the judges. According to Rubinstein, Michelangeli gave "an unsatisfactory performance, but already showed his impeccable technique"). A year later he earned first prize in the Geneva International Competition where he was acclaimed as "a new Liszt" by pianist Alfred Cortot, a member of the judging panel, which was presided by Ignacy Jan Paderewski.

Michelangeli was known for his note-perfect performances. The music critic Harold Schonberg wrote of him: "His fingers can no more hit a wrong note or smudge a passage than a bullet can be veered off course once it has been fired...The puzzling part about Michelangeli is that in many pieces of the romantic repertoire he seems unsure of himself emotionally, and his otherwise direct playing is then laden with expressive devices that disturb the musical flow."[1] The teacher and commentator David Dubal adds that he was best in the earlier works of Beethoven and seemed insecure in Chopin, but that he was "demonic" in such works as the Bach-Busoni Chaconne and the Brahms Paganini Variations.

His repertoire was strikingly small for a concert pianist of such stature. Owing to his obsessive perfectionism relatively few recordings were officially released during Michelangeli's lifetime, but these are augmented by numerous bootleg recordings of live performances. Discographical highlights include the (authorized) live performances in London of Maurice Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, Chopin's Sonata No. 2 and Robert Schumann's Carnaval, Op. 9 and Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26. The Gaspard, as well as his playing of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G set standards for those works and his reading of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 4 is comparable to that of Rachmaninoff himself. His Claude Debussy series for DG is something of a benchmark, if it is sometimes accused of being a little unatmospheric ("swimming in cool water," in Dubal's words). Several DVDs of live performances, and a master class, are also available.

As a composer, Michelangeli wrote 19 Folksongs a cappella for the SAT men's chorus from Trent (Italy).

Michelangeli was something of a hypochondriac, famous for last-minute cancellations of his concert recitals. His last concert took place on May 7, 1993 in Hamburg, Germany. After an extended illness he died in Lugano, Switzerland.

(Wikipedia)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• arturo
• benedetti
• michelangeli
• brahms
• ballata
• ballade
• opus
• 10
• numero
• re
• minore
• Lugano
• 1981

[rva25]

Great interpretation, I love this. He plays this much better than Gilels. This is a real Brahms!

[adrianmole12345]

@CesarBourguet oh get a life.



[cantkeepitin]

@rva25 ABM & Gilels are really both great on this piece. They both have to decide which way they want to play. So we have two great versions.

[DedmonStudios]

I love how he paused and the audience didn't even clap :/

[PianoDaemon]

@1401JSC Have you ever played this piece or looked at the score? I have, and can assure you he is playing it as written.

[paulostroff99]

Superb playing. TY S for sharing.

[1401JSC]

Note-perfect?

His hands are not even together in chords!

[3ounder]

That's the story, he's telling:

A mother questions her son about the blood on his sword. He puts her off with claims that it is his hawk, his horse, but finally admits that is his father, whom he has killed. He declares that he is leaving and will never return, and various creatures (wife, children, livestock) will have to fare without him. His mother then asks what she will get from his departure. He answers "a curse from hell" and implicates his mother in the murder.

See Edwart Ballad

[ilpianista89]

the climax at 2:40 is moving... great and deep interpretation..

[darkblueangel1956]

"Narrando un'antica leggenda dei tempi lontani.... " Con questo inciso, si espande la poesia di Brahms, intima e raccontata con antico idioma. Attraverso l'incedere maestoso del fraseggio e delle sonorità "spaziali" di Benedetti Michelangeli, veniamo trasportati nel tempo e in un'altra dimensione........ E quando mai rinasceranno queste Divinità della Cultura, dell'Arte, della Poesia, della Musica ?

[BlackIsOut]

@jidayjiday no way