J.Holcman interviews A.B.Michelangeli Pianist Without Portfolio

Michelangeli: Pianist without Portfolio

Bolzano, Italy.

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The birds that sing most beautifully are not necessarily the ones most frequently heard. Although appearing but rarely on the world's concert platforms, the phenomenal Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli is idolized even by some distinguished rivals. Knowing little about the man himself, I was fascinated by my first experience with his recordings. Familiarity with his dynamic art and awareness of the compelling personality behind it drew me to Bolzano, where I spent fourteen invigorating and memorable hours with him. Not only, however, with Michelangeli the virtuoso. My celebrated vis-á-vis, a tall, handsome man, also turned out to be a devoted mountaineer; he had served as a wartime pilot in the air force, leaving with the rank of lieutenant ("I prefer to fly even now; as a pilot I get reduced fares"); and he made good use of his early medical training in the field. During the war, Michelangeli suffered hand injuries in a German prison, but managed to escape after eight months. Those same strong, well-shaped hands, which handle the most difficult and the most simple keyboard pieces with equal mastery and sensitivity, are able to manifest a like measure of control behind the wheel. Michelangeli twice did the famous Mille Miglia run, and was winning racing car prizes about the same time that he was winning the first prize in the1939 International Piano Competition in Geneva. He is not one of those pianists who — as he so aptly puts it — “opens the door with his elbow to protect his hands.”

With such a background, it is little wonder that Michelangeli is surrounded by a thick fog of gossip and controversy. In fact, he remains as much of a mystery to his students as he is to his ardent admirers (and enemies) in many parts of the world. While recalling some alleged incidents, his remarkably handsome face often broke into an amused smile. Had I not known that I was talking to a pianist, I might have taken him as one of those imposing actors who can cover the whole range of human emotions from the noble to the savage, even though his facial expressions only slightly hinted at inner changes. There are definitely two Michelangelis. One is legend, one is real. According to some stories, Michelangeli now and then failed to show up for his own sold-out recitals, or played his program faster just to be in time for an appointment dear to him. He is said to enjoy the “lower” comic books, and to get the highest fee ever paid in Italy for a concert performance: a million lire. He is, of course, a lady-killer, too. The quintessence of these modest attributes is condensed, he himself told me, in a book published in Italy, in which he is featured as an alcoholic, a drug addict, and what not!

Michelangeli was born at Brescia, Italy, on January 5, 1920 (at exactly 1 A.M., for the benefit of astrologists). He received his first “lesson” at the age of three and played the violin until he was ten years old, when a shoulder ailment forced him to give it up. Music even at that early age had become an integral part of his life, and he turned toward the organ. He also played the piano — only for himself. “For the most part I disliked the instrument in those days — too much bim-bam-banging.” Eventually the piano did capture his interest, though for a while he also studied medicine. His father, a professional lawyer and amateur musician, decided that his son must continue the family tradition by taking a respectable job in the diplomatic service, which meant good-bye to the concert career he had just begun. He chose instead to say good-bye to the family, and left home to make a temporary living as an organist. In those confusing times the young Benedetti spent a year at the La Verna monastery to become a Franciscan brother. They gave him up. As far as he was concerned, the time spent in the monastery had not been wasted. He found there invaluable manuscripts of unpublished old music which he later performed at recitals.

Michelangeli offered to drive me the few miles to his temporary studio at a place called, perhaps prophetically, Appiano. The whole town knew who was driving that sports car. I found it easy to believe that one of his technicians had once been seized with an attack of hysteria during a drive at 165 kilometers per hour, had insisted on leaving the car in the middle of the road, and had refused to speak ever again to the daredevil maestro. I must admit that during our drive, which was for him adagio, I was slightly less relaxed than my driver, who in turn wondered how I could be so relaxed when we cut into traffic. He explained that the abnormal reflexes which impressed me in his driving technique were very like those in piano technique. Inside the studio, I watched, camera in hand, his movements at the piano as he tried Ravel’s Ondine. In the most complex passage his drooping cigarette remained motionless between his lips. I asked him what had brought him to Bolzano, this small town, more Austrian that Italian in character (he is married and his house is in Brescia). “This is the only mountain area with a conservatory,” he said, “and besides the curative quality of the air, conditions are very favorable here for studying. Distraction-free.”

Pointing out a blackbird, he said, “Would you believe that one of them actually learned from me the opening measure of the third movement of the Emperor?” It occurred to me that it might rather have been the blackbird's great-great-grandfather who had taught this melody to Beethoven.

Some eminent pianists who regard Michelangeli as a great scientist of the piano highly recommended him as a teacher. “He must have learned his technical secrets from the devil himself,” said one of them. To begin with, Michelangeli never accepts fees from students (“I am not a professional teacher”), and indeed some of them are supported by him. Like Horowitz, he places considerable emphasis on personal character, and those who are lacking in humility had better forget about studying with Michelangeli. During teaching sessions he is a complete dictator. “Democracy does not pay, but they are welcome to be democratic among themselves. Yes, they can complain, though not in class where there is no time for argument.” The teaching sessions, during which no third person is present, may last anywhere from twenty minutes to three hours — depending on circumstances and moods. And the number of lessons a student may get is governed by the same laws. I heard of two local pupils who got no more than half a dozen lessons during the whole year. Michelangeli does not teach beginners, accepting only a limited number of advanced pianists, some already recognized. “I prefer not to do an ‘orthopedic’ job,” Michelangeli told me, “but unfortunately in the majority of cases it is absolutely necessary, especially with American pianists, who bang too much and play too fast.” Michelangeli does his own practicing at nights after an active day, while “the mind, a tape with images and reflections, has not yet been erased by sleep.” Hofmann and Rachmaninoff acted on the reverse principle, taking a nap during the day so as to gain a second fresh start (after the mind had been erased).

For all his emphasis on technique, Michelangeli despises pianists who play like an electric typewriter. He stresses the importance of tonal qualities and tries to eliminate the percussiveness and ugliness of piano sound. He allows only slight deviations from the established tempo, which is for him a “focal point”. He never illustrates at the keyboard (his convincing pianism could discourage anyone). Despite his strict regimen and difficult temperament, pupils keep coming to him from all over the world, some following him from place to place. Many of them have previously wasted their savings on other teachers without getting anywhere. “There is an old Italian saying,” said Michelangeli jokingly, “that when everything else fails, one turns to the good Jesus — who teaches free.”

Our conversation was interrupted for a moment by the young lady with us, who suddenly complained of a severe headache. As if by magic, Michelangeli produced a pill from the “drugstore compartments” of his briefcase. He then gave some authoritative advice on diet, and pointing at his habitual dark wool pullover (“which protects me against cold and warm”) told us how to maintain a proper ratio among body temperature, clothes, and weather. Although he takes good care of himself, he denied that he is afraid of anything, including stage fright, sickness and death. “But you are afraid of matches,” I remarked tactlessly. “I am not. They make me nauseous. It is phobia, not a fear. Phobia is contrary to mania.”

As he became more tired, and our conversation became more informal, his melodious Italian changed into a softer dialect. This seemed a good moment to mention some of those fantastic rumors. His nonchalant smile indicated how little the gossips worry him nowadays. And he referred instead to authentic episodes which shed light on his colorful professional and personal relationships. I have learned that he was the only judge who refused to sign Harasiewicz’s diploma at the 1955 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, because he was convinced Ashkenazy deserved the first prize. He disagreed with the chairman of the jury, Professor Drzewiecki of Warsaw, who, by the way, happened to be Harasiewicz’s teacher. In the recent Warsaw contest his name again figured in the list of judges, but his seat remained empty. Not a man to cut off his nose to spite his face, Harasiewicz later came to study with Michelangeli.

Still more exciting was the “performance” Michelangeli gave at a hotel in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. As usual, he had been helping his mechanic adjust the piano before the concert. Too tired to change clothes, he went straight down to the luxurious restaurant with rolled-up sleeves and greasy trousers. He was told to get out. Michelangeli pretended he did not understand, and when two of the staff tried to remove him by force, the athletic pianist brushed them off like flies. At that moment his mechanic arrived, still more disheveled than his master. When the hotel manager personally tried to remove them, Michelangeli got hold of his arms, calmly squeezed them with the same steel-like fingers that could delicately handle a cantilena in Liszt's Mephisto, and lowered him to the floor. “Now that I had established my double personality, I ordered a tremendous dinner with four bottles of the most expensive French wine. I didn't drink a drop, paid an equally tremendous bill, and left no tip.”

Most people acquainted with Michelangeli's artistic achievement would willingly turn a blind eye on his personal idiosyncrasies. This achievement is documented in his superb recordings. His renditions fully confirm his reputation, and to me they establish him as an exemplary, powerful, and original (rather than spontaneous) representative of modem pianistic art. Examples? Take Bach's Italian Concerto — the contemplative, yet moderate recitations in the second movement, or the third, where Michelangeli, and only he, delicately brings out the melodic line in the left hand, starting from m. 29, the very section in which others bang out the right hand.

Michelangeli’s dynamic reading of Beethoven's Sonata in C (Op. 2 No. 3) will impress you with its uncommon rhythmical assurance, dramatic coloration, sensitivity, and absolute technical mastery. His keen polyphonic orchestrations have found their best outlet in Schumann, and, as for technique, his is the one to combine letter-precision with broad dynamic range, as in Ravel. Here his crystalline sound is equally beautiful at all registers, and the expressive top notes emerge as meaningful as his balanced chords. His manual mastery reaches its exciting climax in the Brahms Paganini Variations. Listening to flaming glissandos in octaves, fellow pianists sprout goose pimples, and think of Paganini rather than Brahms. They would give anything to know how he achieved these effects. Instead of going into details, let me just remark that our civilization has invented blood banks, even eye banks, but we still don't have a bank of technique and Michelangeli has had to work very hard to create his own stock.

As might be expected, even a master of Michelangeli's stature can occasionally disappoint. I find this mostly in his renditions of Chopin, where he seems to lack that rare “fifth dimension”. Instead of anticipating the composition as one continuous plan, he resembles the army commander who is aware only of the visible front. A typical example is his strategy in the B-flat minor Scherzo. Curiously enough, wherever we place the tone arm we hear ideal piano playing, yet after listening to the entire performance we realize that it somehow lacks unity. For one reason or another, this courageous and independent pilot has arranged his B-flat flight at relatively low level. Such deficiency is not evident in his readings of Schumann, who is episodic himself.

As for Michelangeli's personal taste in music, he openly praised some old giants of the keyboard, although in our time to be in love with the past masters is a sin almost as bad as necrophilia. He spoke highly of Rachmaninoff and Hofmann. “Landowska? A bit too arbitrary. Perhaps not in her rubato, but certainly in her free use of registers” (Michelangeli, however, takes some liberties too). “Rubato is a human thing and differs with every artist,” said Michelangeli the musician. Michelangeli the doctor added: “The breath and the heartbeat are never constant; they have different tempos. And no two hearts beat exactly alike. See a cardiogram.”

Of the more recent pianists, he mentioned Ashkenazy before Richter, the acute strategist; Flier long before Gilels, the versatile virtuoso. Of the composers, first comes Mozart, whose “rhythmical demands are essential; he must not be played too fast.” Michelangeli cares little for Scriabin (“too sick”), still less for modern jazz (“too monotonous”), yet he has no prejudices against contemporaries and at the age of sixteen was, in fact, the first pianist to introduce Schoenberg works in Italy. His extensive repertoire covers all Beethoven sonatas and Mozart concertos; the entire Chopin and Debussy; much of Bach, Schumann, Brahms; old Italians and a few young moderns.

Came time to leave Bolzano. As for myself, I found its controversial hero extremely kind, relaxed, and accommodating, my sole regret being that his courtesy and hospitality did not extend to a generous display of pianistic art. But my personal loss is nothing compared to the alarming possibility that Michelangeli is lost to us all. Can we afford it? In the past decade our keyboard aristocracy has suffered by the death of its two brilliant young representatives, Lipatti and Kapell. Equally tragic was the premature death of Rosa Tamarkina, probably the only young woman-virtuoso to rank equally with the best male pianists. In other words, every effort should be made to understand Michelangeli and accept his conditions to encourage him to revisit the U.S. An established manager with some imagination could surely overcome his fear about artistic temperament, if only for the prestige. Michelangeli positively denied that caprice was the cause of his failing to show up for a concert. “I was ill,” he said, “and would only have ruined my reputation if I had appeared in such a condition.” Some say “hypochondria”. And I only wish this were the truth. It is sad but understandable that managers are rarely able to take into account personal problems like these. What is sad but not understandable is the fact that no compromise has yet been reached to ensure that the Bolzano Blackbird does not turn into an Oscar Wilde Nightingale. It is partly up to us whether or not we have already heard from Michelangeli the “last burst of music that the white moon heard”.

(Saturday Review, July 30, 1960)

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Jan Holcman (right)

Literature: Holcman. Jan, Michelangeli: Pianist without Portfolio. in: Pianists : on and off the record; the collected essays of Jan Holcman, Maryland 2000, P. 143 - 148

Photo: ibid, P. 156

Jan Holcman & Jan Holcman Collection

Jan Holcman (pronounced HOLTZ-man) was born in Lodz, Poland in 1922. His piano studies at the Lodz Conservatory were brutally interrupted by the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. He narrowly escaped from the Nazis (who, he later discovered, had executed his family) and made his way to Moscow, where he was accepted at the conservatory and spent a year studying with Grigory Ginsburg. He also began researching the many recordings of pianists that he found in the conservatory's library.

The havoc of World War II, however, forced Holcman to move to Tashkent where he endured a period of privation and uncertainty. He then attached himself to General Anders's Polish Army and eventually arrived in Palestine, where he taught and performed until 1947. At that point Holcman emigrated to the United States and enrolled in the diploma program of the Juilliard School. He then began to focus on private teaching and on research into the elements of piano technique and interpretation, especially as revealed on rare recordings by pianists of an earlier era. His first book, "The Legacy of Chopin", was published in 1954. Holcman's articles about many pianistic topics began appearing in various periodicals, notably Saturday Review and Musical Courier.

During this period, Holcman built an elaborate sound system designed to examine and compare recorded piano performances down to the most minute detail. Some of the results of his investigations appeared in his published survey of Soviet vs. Western pianists and in his critical explorations of nearly all existing recordings of Chopin, Liszt, and Debussy. In April 1963, Holcman, plagued with fragile health and the residue of his wartime experiences, either jumped or fell (accounts differ) from the window of his fifth-floor New York studio.

In 2000 IPAM published a collection of 30 of Holcman's essays on pianists and their recordings. Edited by IPAM curator Donald Manildi with extensive supplementary material, this critically-acclaimed 255-page paperback volume, "Pianists: On and Off the Record", is available directly from IPAM.

Pianists, on and Off the Record

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Jan Holcman Donald Manildi / 2000 / International Piano Archives

IPAM's Holcman Collection includes many of the rare recordings and scores that Holcman used in his research, as well as initial drafts of his articles, an extensive body of correspondence with fellow collector/discographer Harry L. Anderson, and files containing notes and unpublished material.

S.: https://www.lib.umd.edu/ipam/collections/jan-holcman, https://www.lib.umd.edu/ipam/recordings-and-publications/holcman-boo