Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (Italian: [arˈtuːro beneˈdetti mikeˈlandʒeli]; 5 January 1920 – 12 June 1995) was an Italian classical pianist. He is considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.

Born in Brescia, Italy, he began music lessons at the age of three, initially with the violin, but quickly switched to the piano. At eleven he entered the Milan Conservatory, graduating three years later at fourteen. In 1938, at the age of eighteen, he began his international career by entering the Ysaÿe International Festival in Brussels, Belgium, where he was placed seventh. (A brief account of this competition, at which Emil Gilels took first prize and Moura Lympany second, is given by Arthur Rubinstein, who was one of the judges. According to Rubinstein, Benedetti 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 over by Ignacy Jan Paderewski.

The Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache always saw in Benedetti Michelangeli a colleague, and not merely another competent pianist: “Michelangeli makes colors; he is a conductor." Celibidache also considered Michelangeli the "greatest living artist".

The teacher and commentator David Dubal argued 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.

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