Pianist Maurizio Pollini dies aged 82

Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, considered a virtuoso of Chopin and Beethoven, died this Saturday at the age of 82, La Scala theater in Milan announced.

The pianist has canceled a number of concerts in recent years due to health problems.

For the La Scala opera house, Maurizio Pollini was “one of the greatest pianists of our time and a fundamental reference point in the artistic life of the theater for more than fifty years.”

From 1958 until his last recital in February 2023, Pollini played in this theater 168 times, and also took part in a large number of conferences and seminars with students.

“Pollini was an interpreter capable of revolutionizing the perception of composers such as Chopin, Debussy and Beethoven himself, as well as bringing the avant-garde, especially Schoenberg, and modern music to the fore,” AFP reported, citing a statement from La Scala. .

In Portugal, Maurizio Pollini performed in the Great Hall of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation at least three times: in 2002, playing Chopin and Debussy, in 2007 as part of the “Piano Cycle”, putting composers frequently encountered in his career in dialogue, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Robert Schumann and Ludwig van Beethoven, as well as in 2009.

Born in Milan on January 5, 1942, into a family of artists, Maurizio Pollini made a “sensational” entry into the low-key world of classical music in March 1960, the Milan opera house added.

He won first prize at the Warsaw Chopin Competition, where at 18 he became the youngest participant. The chairman of the jury, Arthur Rubinstein, praised the musician with the following phrase: “He already plays better than any of us!”

After winning the competition, the pianist could continue to continue his professional career, interrupting it, however, to practice and expand his repertoire.

In the late 1960s, he participated in impromptu concerts in factories, programming for students and workers of La Scala in Milan under the baton of his friend Claudio Abbado, an Italian maestro who, in addition to being music director of La Scala, was the main orchestra. conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Vienna State Opera.

Maurizio Pollini was also a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1970.

In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s he made a series of recordings with the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon publishing house – the first being Stravinsky’s Three Movements of Petrushka and Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7 in 1971 – and also gave concerts and tours .

In his youth he was called “Chopin’s pianist”, and in adulthood Pollini established himself alongside Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert, and received critical acclaim for his work with Johannes Brahms.

Other awards received throughout his career include the Golden Range in 2011 for his recording of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations.