Maurizio Pollini
piano
Maurizio Pollini’s performances with Claudio Abbado are legendary. Since 1970, the pianist has been a regular guest of the Berliner Philharmoniker, with whom he has performed all the great concertos of the piano repertoire: Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Bartók, Schoenberg – and invariably Mozart.
Pollini’s career is impressive: born into an artistic family in Milan in 1942, he studied piano, composition and conducting at the conservatory in his hometown. After early competition successes in Geneva and Seregno, he then won first prize at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1960 at the age of 18 and made his debut as the soloist in Chopin’s First Piano Concerto in a concert conducted by Sergiu Celibidache at La Scala in Milan. Despite further successes, Pollini continued his studies as a master student of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli before an illustrious career took him to the most prestigious international concert halls. Chopin remained a major focus of his repertoire, in which the works of Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Debussy also occupy prominent positions. In 1993 and 1994 he performed the complete Beethoven sonatas for the first time in Berlin and Munich and later repeated the cycle in other cities. Maurizio Pollini has also dedicated himself to contemporary music. Maurizio Pollini has been awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, the Premio Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award, among others. Maurizio Pollini died in Milan on 23 March 2024.
