On the death of Maurizio Pollini
A pianist for the revolutionary
March 23, 2024 by Michael Schmidt
Maurizio Pollini was one of the most exciting pianists of the last fifty years. A technically almost unrivaled perfection combined with classicist clarity shaped the special profile of the Italian. The focus of his repertoire was the music of Chopin, Beethoven and Schubert. But he was also passionately committed to 20th century modernism. Pollini has now died at the age of 82.
Maurizio Pollini won the 1960 Chopin Competition in Warsaw when he was just 18 years old. Immediately afterwards, he received numerous international concert offers, which the young pianist initially rejected in order to devote himself to studies – including with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. But soon after, Pollini made a career as one of the world’s most sought-after concert pianists.
Pollini’s trademark: sober intensity on the piano
Maurizio Pollini was born on January 5, 1942 in Milan, the son of an architect. And something soulfully architectural characterizes his piano playing. He was an Apollonian who proportioned the details well and at the same time filled them with profound expression. The sober intensity of his piano playing became a trademark and even style-defining for an entire generation of pianists. Pollini has also performed with all of the world’s major orchestras – including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, with which he recorded Johannes Brahms’ 2nd Piano Concerto in 2006 under the direction of Mariss Jansons.
Concerts also in factories or sports halls
Crossing borders: The “Progetto Pollini” at the Salzburg Festival
From 1994 he put together his creative, cross-border concert programs at the Salzburg Festival under the name “Progetto Pollini”. Over several years, he created sensational cycles of modern and old music in which he mixed eras and styles, composers and pieces in new and often surprising ways. “Romanticism and modernism are not a contradiction. Schönberg was also a romantic composer,” Pollini once said in an interview with BR-KLASSIK.
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The pianist Maurizio Pollini in conversation with BR-KLASSIK editor Bernhard Neuhoff about his political commitment against the Vietnam War and the future of the classical concert. Read the interview here.
Protest against the Vietnam War and against dictatorships
For Maurizio Pollini, music was not just form and construction. As an artist rooted in the spirit of humanism, he saw it as a profoundly human expression of sensitivities, social contradictions, hopes and dreams. In 1972, the Italian pianist caused a scandal at a concert in Milan because he read out to the audience a note of protest against the American bombing of North Vietnam.
Pollini was more than a musician and piano virtuoso. He felt like a politically minded and active citizen who was committed to his convictions. Together with artist friends like Claudio Abbado, he protested not only against the Vietnam War, but also against dictatorships in South America. Most recently, he expressed outrage – also together with Abbado – about the cultural exploitation of Italian politics under Silvio Berlusconi.
Maurizio Pollini plays Schönberg’s op.11 and Beethoven’s Hammerklavier (LIVE in Paris 2009)
Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for Pollini
A sense of responsibility and seriousness characterized Maurizio Pollini’s political and musical actions and thoughts. The appreciation for his artistic openness and consistency was reflected not least in the awarding of the Siemens Music Prize to the pianist in 1996. In his eulogy wrote the music critic Joachim Kaiser: “Pollini knows how important the peace, the stillness, the silence is in music.”
Classic beauty and modernity – for Pollini there is no contradiction
For Pollini, classical beauty and modernity were not mutually exclusive. His piano playing strived for balance and clarity, including in the interpretation of contemporary music. The recording of the Chopin Etudes from 1972 still fascinates today because of this classical understanding of beauty. And it does so with such an immediate freshness that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what inspires more: the straightforward, transparent piano tone, the brilliant virtuosity, the emotional sensitivity or the structural logic.
BR-KLASSIK remembers Maurizio Pollini
Classical stars in memory of Maurizio Pollini on Monday, March 25th, 6:05 p.m. on BR-KLASSIK.